The Prodigal Daughter CHAPTER 1.
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"If I loved a man, and father wouldn't consent to my marrying him — I'd run away with him, that I would!" said a young lady, at the mature age of fifteen, half in fun and half in earnest. She was one of a group of three or four lively maidens, who were spending an afternoon with Alice Melleville, at her father's house, near a pleasant village in Virginia.
"You'd do more than I would, then," remarked one of the mirthful circle. "I'd be afraid; for runaway matches hardly ever turn out well."
"I'd risk it," responded the first speaker.
"It's more than I would," said another, who was older, and more thoughtful. "If I were a man, I would care very little to have that woman for my wife, who could thus deceive and forsake her parents. The adage, that a disobedient child cannot make a good wife, has always seemed to me a true one."
"Spoken like a sensible girl, as you are, Sarah!" said Mr. Melleville, who was present. His daughter Alice had not joined in the conversation, though her manner indicated that she was by no means an uninterested listener. When Mr. Melleville made the remark last recorded, an attentive witness might have observed the color deepening on her cheek, and a shadow flitting quickly over her bright young face.
"I don't care what you all say," broke in the first speaker, gaily. The law is, that a man must leave father and mother and cleave to his wife; and it is a poor rule that won't work both ways."
"You jest with a serious subject, Helen," remarked the young lady whom Mr. Melleville had called Sarah. "For my part, I have always felt that no good can, but harm may, often arise from the indulgence of undue levity, and the expression of hastily formed opinions on these subjects. Someone, while we thus utter sentiments approving such a doubtful course, may be debating the momentous question; and a half-formed resolution may be strengthened and matured by our thoughtlessness."
"I hope no one here is going to run away," said Helen, casting her eye over the little circle. "But if anyone is, I would say, be sure your choice is a good one, and then die rather than be untrue to your heart's best affections!"
Helen spoke with warmth, and something of energy in her tone.
"Well, young ladies," remarked Mr. Melleville, walking backwards and forwards through the room as he spoke, "you can all run away if you like, and your parents may forgive you if they will; but as for me, my mind has long been made up to utterly and forever renounce that child who marries against my consent."
Alice cast her eyes upon the floor when her father commenced speaking. She did not raise them immediately after he had ceased, but her cheek was paler, and the heavings of her bosom quicker and more apparent.
"That's only said to frighten Alice, here," Helen said, gaily. "All fathers talk that way, and forgive their truant daughters in a week after the elopement."
"I earnestly hope that no child of mine will presume on the anticipation of such a result. Sad, sad indeed, will be her mistake!" Mr. Melleville said, seriously.
"I'd risk you, if I were your daughter," Helen responded, as mirthful as ever.
"But you would find, to your sorrow, that you had risked too much."
There was an air of seriousness about Mr. Melleville's manner that was felt by the young ladies; and Helen, among the rest, finding herself oppressed by it, did not reply, nor did any one allude further to the subject.
On the evening of the same day in which this conversation occurred, Alice stole quietly from her father's house, and passing through the garden, came to a pleasant lawn, which was concealed by a few trees, from the view of anyone in the dwelling. Here she paused timidly, and looked eagerly around.
Brightly the moonbeams fell upon her snowy garments, and sweet, innocent face. Could there be thoughts other than pure and innocent, beneath that lovely countenance? But on so sad a thought as that, we will not dwell. For more than a minute she waited just upon the edge of the lawn, looking and listening with earnest attention.
"He promised" just passed, murmuringly, her lips, when a quick step caught her ear.
"Alice, dear Alice!" said a young man, bounding to her side, and catching hold of her hand, while he pressed his lips fondly and familiarly to her cheek.
"I was afraid you would not come," said the maiden.
"Fire and water could not have kept me away! I saw you the moment you left the house, and my eye was on you at every step. I think of only you, and am happy only in your presence. How cruel is the fate that interposes such barriers between us!"
"Cruel indeed!" sighed Alice, leaning trustingly upon the arm through which she had drawn her own.
"Is there any hope that your father will think more kindly of me, Alice?"
"I fear not, William," Alice replied, sadly.
"And must we, then, be separated forever?"
Alice clung to his arm more earnestly, but did not reply.
"If this is our fate," continued the tempter "then far better for us to meet no more; let us try to forget each other. For me, too keen a sense of pain must attend a relationship like this, when all hope is destroyed."
Still the maiden replied not, but shrank closer to his side.
"Do you love me, Alice?" he said, in a changed and earnest tone.
Alice looked up, the bright moonbeams falling upon her face, and making perfect every line of expression.
"Forgive the question, Alice. I did not doubt you. As tender, as earnest, as confiding as is your love for me — just so tender and earnest is my love for you. We were made for each other, and separate, cannot be happy."
"I know it, I know it!" returned Alice, in a low and trembling tone.
"Then, why should we be separated?" urged her lover.
"I would rather die than endure it, if separation is to be permanent," she murmured.
"It need not be — it shall not be!" responded the young man, earnestly.
"It will be, and it shall be!" exclaimed Mr. Melleville, loud and angrily, laying his hand heavily upon the shoulder of Alice, and drawing her with a sudden jerk from the side of her lover.
The young man, taken thus by surprise, raised his arm to strike down the intruder, but recollecting himself in an instant — he turned from the frightened child and angry father, and strode hastily away.
No further word was spoken by Mr. Melleville, until with his trembling truant he reached his house.
"Now, Alice," he said, in a calm, determined tone, and with a severe expression of countenance. "Remember what I tell you this night. If you forget it, or disbelieve, and thence disregard it — the sorrow be your own. I do not approve of William Anderson as the husband of my daughter, even if he moved in the same station that we do, and were a man of correct principles. But, as I know him to be a base-minded fellow, of bad morals, and bad habits — I am doubly determined not to approve him. And now, that with my own ears I have heard him basely tempt you to forsake father and mother — I would see you in your grave before I would sacrifice you willingly.
I have lived longer than you have, Alice, and I know more of the world than you do; and, more than all, I can read character better than you can. Now, from all I have seen — and I have sought opportunities to know him — I am certain of what I say, when I pronounce William Anderson a man so selfish in his feelings and aims, as to be utterly incapable of rendering any woman happy. He does not love you, Alice, half so much as he loves my property — one farthing of which neither he nor you shall ever touch if you are so mad as to marry each other. Believe me, Alice, when I tell you," and there was much tenderness in his voice, "that I have loved you too well, to sacrifice you willingly into unworthy hands. But, if into unworthy hands you throw yourself, then, as I have already told you — we will never be reconciled!"
And so saying, Mr. Melleville turned from the room, and left his daughter sitting in a state of mental stupefaction. The words of her father rang in her ears, but she could not realize their threatening and fearful import. In a little while she stole off to bed, but not to find that sweet sleep that had heretofore hovered around her pillow. Once she fell into a profound slumber, and dreamed vividly. Her lover came for her, and her father gave her up to him willingly, and she, with maiden confidence and delight, yielded to him the hand he sought. Swiftly the days seemed to pass happy and innocent days; but a change suddenly took place in her perceptions. The body of her husband seemed to grow transparent, and she could look beyond the surface.
The beauty and symmetry of his form, became lost in the horrid skeleton beneath, that seemed joined to a mass of loathsomeness; and every day this became more distinct to the eye, and more revolting. She shrank from his touch, and shut her eyes when he came near her, but she could not escape from him. Even as close as her own shadow, was he by her side. Imploringly she sought her father, but he was deaf to her petition for relief, and turned coldly away. Long, long years seemed to pass, and still the horrible skeleton was by her side, with its mass of loathsomeness, more livid and more revolting. One night, it seemed that she was lying by the side of her husband, and his hand was upon her bosom. That hand grew heavier, and heavier, until it seemed crushing in her chest.
In vain she endeavored to rise--all power was gone. And she was sinking it seemed into insensibility, from a feeling of suffocation, when the door of her chamber suddenly opened, and her father came in and lifted the skeleton arm.
"Take me away, take me away, dear father!" she cried, in an agony of hope and fear, as her father, having relieved her, turned slowly to pass from the room.
The sound of her own voice, for she was uttering the words aloud, awoke her. All was dark in her chamber, and she shrank, trembling, beneath the bed-covers.
This strange and fearful dream haunted her imagination for days, and caused her to think of William Anderson with an affection somewhat diminished in its ardor. But the impression gradually wore off, and, in her thoughts, he was all that her fond heart could desire.
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