FIRST LOVE.
A NOVEL.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. III.
LONDON:
SAUNDERS AND OTLEY, CONDUIT STREET.
1830.
FIRST LOVE.
CHAPTER I.
We left our party concluding breakfast on themorning after the masquerade. The ladiesshortly after repaired to the great room, whitherthey were soon followed by some of the gentlemen,among others the Marquis of H. Thescene afforded a striking contrast to that ofthe evening before: Sir Archibald’s mysteriousdeath, together with the atrocious attempt onthe life of Captain Montgomery, seemed to[2]have given a shock to the gay spirits of all.Those who spoke at all, spoke almost in whispers,their themes murders, mysteries, andsudden deaths.
Mr. Graham, reclining on a chaise longue, wasvery nearly asleep, and Lady Morven was alreadyyawning. Julia happened to enter the green-house,and was immediately followed thither bythe Marquis. Wise looks were interchangedby the rest of the company. Half an hour, anhour, nay, a quarter more elapsed, but neitherJulia nor the Marquis re-appeared. At lengthFrances entered the green-house. Lo, thebirds had flown! Julia was found in her ownroom writing to her grandmamma.
But the Marquis’s seat at the dinner tablewas vacant. The servants could give noaccount of his lordship; but, that he had leftthe castle on horse-back some hours since.[3]Julia was observed to colour a little, when theMarquis’s absence was noticed.
Lord Fitz-Ullin was again at sea; and ourhero had again sailed with him. A newharvest of glory was being reaped by both.Almost every column of every newspaper wasfilled with the movements of the fleet underthe command of Admiral Lord Fitz-Ullin; andin every account did the name of CaptainMontgomery stand pre-eminent in the ranks ofglory. No wonder then if that name oftenfixed the eye of Julia.
Indeed, the moment she took up a paper, itwas the first word she saw! It seemed writtenin talismanic characters! It stood out fromthe page, and offered itself to her view, ere, atleast, she was conscious of having sought for it.Yet there were those (and among them LordArandale,) who suspected that Henry was the[4]object of her thoughts, when her face andneck became suffused with blushes on herbeing found with a newspaper in her hand.
At length, Lord Fitz-Ullin lost his life in theachievement of one of the most brilliant of hisvictories. The whole nation mourned in themidst of triumph!
The papers in which, so lately, the heart-stirringdeeds of the living hero followed eachother in rapid succession, were now, with amournful sameness, as chilling to the excitedimagination as the still scene they represented,filled, from end to end, with the solemn lying instate of the unconscious corse, the funeral lightingof the chamber of death, the silent mourners,who watched with the dead night and day, thesombre splendours of the body’s last receptacle.The numerous banners waving their shatteredremnants over it; the noiseless steps of the[5]spectators, as they approached, gazed, andpassed, treading a flooring that returned noecho to their footfalls; the firing of minuteguns by the forts, the lowering of their colourshalf mast high, by all the vessels