The Missing Bride. Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

I know—Fanny has heard them talk!"

      She swept her hands across her brow several times, as if to clear her mental vision, and gazing upon Edith, said:

      "Ah! old playmate! Did the palms lie? The ravaged tome, the blood-stained hearth, and the burning roof for me—the fated nuptials, the murdered bridegroom, and the fatherless child for you. Did the palms lie, Edith? You were ever incredulous! Answer, did the palms lie?"

      "The prediction was partly fulfilled, as it was very likely to be at the time our neighborhood was overrun by a ruthless foe. It happened so, poor Fanny! You did not know the future, any more than I did—no one on earth knows the mysteries of the future, 'not the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.'"

      This seemed to annoy the poor creature—soothsaying, by palmistry, had been her weakness in her brighter days, and now the strange propensity clung to her through the dark night of her sorrows, and received strength from her insanity.

      "Come in, dear Fanny," said Edith, "come in and stay with us."

      "No, no!" she almost shrieked again. "I should bring a curse upon your house! Oh! I could tell you if you would hear! I could warn you, if you would be warned! But you will not! you will not!" she continued, wringing her hands in great trouble.

      "You shall predict my fate and Miriam's," said Marian, smiling, as she opened the gate, and came out leading the child. "And I know," she continued, holding out her palm, "that it will be such a fair fate, as to brighten up your spirits for sympathy with it."

      "No! I will not look at your hand!" cried Fanny, turning away. Then, suddenly changing her mood, she snatched Marian's palm, and gazed upon it long and intently; gradually her features became disturbed—dark shadows seemed to sweep, as a funereal train, across her face—her bosom heaved—she dropped the maiden's hand.

      "Why, Fanny, you have told me nothing! What do you see in my future?" asked Marian.

      The maniac looked up, and breaking, as she sometimes did, into improvisation, chanted, in the most mournful of tones, these words:

      "Darkly, deadly, lowers the shadow,

       Quickly, thickly, comes the crowd—

       From death's bosom creeps the adder,

       Trailing slime upon the shroud!"

      Marian grew pale, so much, at the moment, was she infected with the words and manner of this sybil; but then, "Nonsense!" she thought, and, with a smile, roused herself to shake off the chill that was creeping upon her.

      "Feel! the air! the air!" said Fanny, lifting her hand.

      "Yes, it is going to rain," said Edith. "Come in, dear Fanny."

      But Fanny did not hear—the fitful, uncertain creature had seized the hand of the child Miriam, and was gazing alternately upon the lines in the palm and upon her fervid, eloquent face.

      "What is this? Oh! what is this?" she said, sweeping the black tresses back from her bending brow, and fastening her eyes upon Miriam's palm. "What can it mean? A deep cross from the Mount of Venus crosses the line of life, and forks into the line of death! a great sun in the plain of Mars—a cloud in the vale of Mercury! and where the lines of life and death meet, a sanguine spot and a great star! I cannot read it! In a boy's hand, that would betoken a hero's career, and a glorious death in a victorious field; but in a girl's! What can it mean when found in a girl's? Stop!" And she peered into the hand for a few moments in deep silence, and then her face lighted up, her eyes burned intensely, and once more she broke forth in improvisation:

      "Thou shalt be bless'd as maiden fair was never bless'd before,

       And the heart of thy belov'd shall be most gentle, kind and pure;

       But thy red hand shall be lifted at duty's stern behest,

       And give to fell destruction the head thou lov'st the best.

      "Feel! the air! the air!" she exclaimed, suddenly dropping the child's hand, and lifting her own toward the sky.

      "Yes, I told you it was going to rain, but there will not be much, only a light shower from the cloud just over our heads."

      "It is going to weep! Nature mourns for her darling child! Hark! I hear the step of him that cometh! Fly, fair one! fly! Stay not here to listen to the voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely!" cried the wild creature, as she dashed off toward the forest.

      Marian and Edith looked after her, in the utmost compassion.

      "Who is the poor, dear creature, Edith, and what has reduced her to this state?"

      "She was an old playmate of my own, Marian. I never mentioned her to you—I never could bear to do so. She was one of the victims of the war. She was the child of Colonel Fairlie and the bride of Henry Laurie, one of the most accomplished and promising young men in the State. In one night their house was attacked, and Fanny saw her father and her husband massacred, and her home burned before her face! She—fell into the hands of the soldiers! She went mad from that night!"

      "Most horrible!" ejaculated Marian.

      "She was sent to one of the best Northern asylums, and the property she inherited was placed in the hands of a trustee—old Mr. Hughes, who died last week, you know; and now that he is dead and she is out, I don't know what will be done, I don't understand it at all."

      "Has she no friends, no relatives? She must not be allowed to wander in this way," said the kind girl, with the tears swimming in her eyes.

      "I shall always be her friend, Marian. She has no others that I know of now; and no relative, except her young cousin, Thurston Willcoxen, who has been abroad at a German University these five years past, and who, in event of Fanny's death, would inherit her property. We must get her here, if possible. I will go in and send Jenny after her. She will probably overtake her in the forest, and may be able to persuade her to come back. At least, I shall tell Jenny to keep her in sight, until she is in some place of safety."

      "Do, dear Edith!"

      "Are you not coming?" said Edith, as she led her little girl toward the house.

      "In one moment, dear; I wish only to bind up this morning-glory, that poor Fanny chanced to pull down as she ran through."

      Edith disappeared in the cottage.

      Marian stood with both her rosy arms raised, in the act of binding up the vine, that with its wealth of splendid azure-hued, vase-shaped flowers, over-canopied her beautiful head like a triumphal arch. She stood there, as I said, like a radiant, blooming goddess of life and health, summer sunshine and blushing flowers.

      The light tramp of horse's feet fell upon her ear. She looked up, and with surprise lighting her dark-blue eyes, beheld a gentleman mounted on a fine black Arabian courser, that curveted gracefully and capriciously before the cottage gate.

      Smilingly the gentleman soothed and subdued the coquettish mood of his willful steed, and then dismounted and bowing with matchless grace and much deference, addressed Marian.

      The maiden was thinking that she had never seen a gentleman with a presence and a manner so graceful, courteous and princely in her life. He was a tall, finely proportioned, handsome man, with a superb head, an aquiline profile, and fair hair and fair complexion. The great charm, however, was in the broad, sunny forehead, in the smile of ineffable sweetness, in the low and singularly mellifluous voice, and the manner, gentle and graceful as any woman's.

      "Pardon me, my name is Willcoxen, young lady, and I have the honor of addressing—"

      "Miss Mayfield," said Marian.

      "Thank you," said the gentleman, with one involuntary gaze of enthusiastic admiration that called all the roses out in full bloom upon the maiden's cheeks; then governing himself, he bent his eyes to the ground, and said, with great deference: "You will pardon the liberty I have taken in calling here, Miss Mayfield, when I tell you that I am in search of an unhappy young relative, who, I am informed, passed here