Julia (Chapter_1)

(4) fevour of an ardent heart--a fevour, which alas has to often destroyed its fresh blown hopes, like the heat of the noon day sun which withers the flowers of the morning.

Days of my youth! ye are indeed gone, but ye linger yet on my mind, in hues as bright & fair as that glow, which still begins on the horizon. Dear days! ye are all reflected in memory's mystic glass, as vividly as if ye had not yet passed away. Magic power! which can thus restore the scenes of days of other years, obliterating all that is painful & cloathing them in more than their original beauty.-Yes, you restore those fairy visions, that one were mine; restore them freed from that alley which is ever mingled with regalities--Stay! ye sweet semblances of departed hours, stay! & illuminate the gloom of the present! The present! what is it? Yesterday it was the future--Tomorrow it shall be the past. Whether laden with joy & sorrow, it is equally evanescent & is unworthy of hope or of regret. Speed then ye moments, it matters not whether ye be arrayed in brightness or in gloom since your duration is so short. Ye may carry with you in your rapid flight, the richest joys, the sweetest pleasures earth can give--yes even these still dearer, with which hope once promised, but ye cannot rob me of those which bloom beyond that smiling sky." As these thoughts filled the mind of Julia, her countenance kindled with rapture, her eyes seemed as if they penetrated the blue vault on which they were intently fixed, her hands were clasped upon her bosom Her full heart was relieved by sighs which seemed to carry her soul to heaven, & by the unfelt tears which rolled over her uplifted face.

Who that has ever enjoyed this delicious trance of feeling, has not regreted to be awakened, & forced to return again to the common place realties of life? "Days woven with threads of silk & gold exclaimed Madam Sevigne, for she knew no happiness but such as courts could give--"Days woven of light & fragrance" exclaims the devotee of nature, whose joys are too pure & etherial to be compared with even the richest materials of earth.--

(5) And Julia did not regret to be thus awakened, altho' the servant who summoned her to the drawing room told her, that the gentleman who was waiting there, had bid him tell Mrs Clifton, that an old friend wished to see her.

When Julia entered, she bowed to the gentlemen as to a stranger of whom she had no recollection. He had approached her with eagerness, but percieving by her manner that he was not recognized, he stopped, & looking earnestly & somewhat reproachfully in her face, he exclaimed, "and have you forgotten me Julia?" "Oh Henry, dear Henry, is it you?" she cried on hearing his voice while she threw her arms round him & embraced him with the fondness of the fondest sister.

"I did expect," said Henry D'Aubigne, that you would so entirely have forgotten me."-"Forgotten you, my more than brother," repeated Julia-"my not knowing you--is a proof that I have not forgotten you--no indeed, such as you left me ten years ago, such do I remember you--No wonder then, that in this pale thin face, & this slender form, & these grave looks, I should not recognize the full & ruddy face--the laughing countenance, the large & rounded form of my old friend & companion.--Blame the shocking climate that has thus transformed you, & not my memory dear Henry--that, has been true to every hue & [?] of the face & form you carried with you to Carolina!" "I could not have supposed I was so much changed, tho' internal as well as external monitions tell me I am not what I was. But to you Julia, time has been more kind--Tho' ten long years have passed likewise over your face they have not robbed it of a single grace--they have spared even the bloom & freshness of your childhood."

"My dear friend"--replied she playfully--"why this

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(6) fatal climate must have dimmed your sight, as well as faded your complexion--You cannot certainly see distinctly--why I am an old woman, do you not percieve the wrinkles & furrows of these odious ten years?"

"Not one," said he smiling, "& yet I assure you I am more clear sighted than ever."

"Why your eyes do look very bright, & even your fore head, said Julia, as she pushed aside the thick black curls that shaded it--"even your forehead has not lost all it fairness & smoothness--Do you remember, Henry, one day when I was sitting on your knee, after I had finished my drawing lesson-the flowers I painted on your forehead?--I told you it would do better than my pallet, for it was as white & smooth as ivory--& do you remember too, how I used to pat your cheeks & call them my pretty red peaches?--Oh Henry how I used to teaze you, & how patient & good you were, were not those happy days?--How I wish I was again a child! Don't you Henry?"

D'Aubigne sighed & checked the words that were rising to his lips--& said, "in your children Julia, you can live even again those happy days-"

"Ah true," said she, "my children! how could I so long for get them?--& away she flew & soon returned leading in one hand her son, in the other her little girl, both beautiful as angels--

"Here, here," said she, "is another Henry & Julia."

D'Aubigne caught them to his bosom & almost smothered them with carresses--The boy seemed well pleased, & gazed with a smiling & confiding countenance on the stranger-friend--But the little girl struggled to get free & running to her mother cried "Mama I don't know the gentleman & my name ant Julia, Mama."

"Yes it is my love--Your papa would have you christened Julia, tho' I always call you Rosa."

"And your husband?--will you not introduce me to him?"

A slight confusion & embarrassment passed over Julia's countenance, but her head was bent over Rosa, & D'Aubigne did not percieve it--"He is absent at present," she replied--but when he returns he will rejoice to mee the friend & companion of my childhood."

(7) "You are charmingly established here," said D'Aubigne, as with Julia's arm within his & holding Henry by the hand, while Rosa on the other clung to that of her mother, they wandered over the Garden & grounds. I have never seen a more lovely spot being so near to Washington & George-Town it must unite the advantages of society, with the solicitiude of the country. It seems the very abode of happiness."

Julia, sighed & answered, "it is in truth a place after my own heart. Tho' thrown by fortune into the gay & tumultuous scenes of fashionable life, nature I verily think designed me for an inhabitant of the country, otherwise she wasted on me, feelings & perceptions that are very useless amidst brick houses & blazing drawing-rooms--"

"Then you prefer retirement to the gay world?"

"Not exactly so," said Julia--"I can not precisely explain how it is. I love solitude--no human being enjoys it more than I do- And yet I love society & enjoy that likewise, with as much zest as any woman alive.--Habit, they say is second nature, & so, habit I suppose gives me as much relish for the gay world, as nature has given for the solitude of the country.-

A kind of amphibious animal I believe--like those wild fowl you see, now flying through the air & now floating on water," & she pointed as she spoke to the Potomac whose broad, bright stream rolled majestically before them--"They seem to enjoy themselves equally in either element."

"What a happy disposition," exclaimed D'Aubigne.

Julia again sighed & turning homewards, "come," said she "let us, as in days past sit by the evening fire & tell stories--the air is growing chill. You shall tell me the story of all your adventures & I will tell mine."

D'Aubigne was now an established inmate in Clifton's family, & soon so endeared himself to the chilren that they forgot he was a recent acquaintance, & loved him as a friend & relative. He read to Julia of a morning, or when she was occupied, became the companion & playmate of Rosa--he rode or walked with her in the afternoon & visited with her in the evening--Henry, hastened from school at an earlier hour & abandoned his former companions & [?], that he ought be with his dear Uncle--as he called D'Aubigne

(8) Henry d'Aubigne was a descendant from one of those heugonot families who after the revocation of the Edict of Nantz fled to America in search of an Asylum from persecution. In forsaking their country, they had left their etates, honors--friends--& had preserved nothing but that imperishable glory which attaches to the recollection of virtuous & heroic actions & the proud name to which those recollections belong.--Even Henry after the lapse of centuries felt his blood quicken when he recollected that the name he bore had been rendered illustrious by the bravery, the constancy, the fidelity of the friend & companion in arms of Henry the Fourth. And when he thought of the virtues of Theodore Agrippa D'Aubigne, it kindled in his soul a spirit that would have scorned a base or unworthy action. His ancestors were among the earliest colonists who settled in south Carolina, where, tho' they enjoyed political & religious freedom, they endured hardships & privations which made them often sigh for their native land. His family had been long settled in Charleston, & were gradually rising to influence & wealth, when the revolutionary War swept away their accumulated comforts.

Of three brothers, the father of Henry, was the only one that survivied the long & direful conflict. He had joined the daring & invincible Marion, & with him had suffered unheard of hardships & been exposed to danger in every form. Often for weeks together this dauntless & enterprising troop, would retreat to the dark forsets or gloomy swamps & patiently wait a favourable opporunity of attacking the enmy, with no covering but the skies, no bed but the ground, no food but the wild fruits; exposed to hunger, fatigue & the inclemency of the seasons. Through paths & coverts known only to themselves, they would perseveringly follow the enemy, tell the occasion offered to strike the effective blow, then rushing from their dark recesses, like a black thunder cloud, they would discharge their lightning, spreading death & devestation through the hostile ranks, before they could recover from the surprise & consternation into which they were thrown, the assailants would be vanished & again hidden in their inaccessbile retreats. Such was the irregular dreadful warfare these partizan troops carried on during the eventful struggle for liberty.