Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1852 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XII. How rarely is it--more rarely than when, in the midst of the broad Atlantic, vessel meets vessel--that man can ask his heart, "What cheer V and receive for answer, "Alls well." When Julian Ludlow retired to his chamber that night--when the door was closed, and, by the kindly but officious care of Mr. Westwoods valet, he was hurried to bed more rapidly than he desired--he lay awake for upwards of an hour, notwithstanding the exhaustion of illness, and the unusual fatigue. The cry rose up within him--" What cheer?" But the answer never was "Alls well." At one time, it was "Breakers a-head " and at others, the same voice spoke of dangers all around. Every one has felt how different is the aspect of the same facts and circumstances at each varying hour of the day; how differently we look upon our fate and future in the merry morning, in the sunny noon, and in the dull, silent night; and there left alone, with the dim watch-lamp winking in the chimney, almost all that was bright and cheering in the events of that day passed away from Julians eyes like unreal pageants; and nothing but the dark, and the coarse, and the heavy remained. Sometimes he could hardly believe it real; that he had spoken as he had; that Mary had so answered him; that their almost insane love had been breathed to each other; that their hearts had found voice in sounds beyond recal. It seemed a dream--a vision, which could have no truth in it; and yet it came back and back upon him with an awful sense of all its consequences. Was not the love itself rash, mad, hopeless % Had not the avowal of it been wrong, base, ungrateful? "What would Mr. Westwood think--he who had loaded him with kindness--he who had fostered, with such tenderness, his youth, promoted...