apartment, which he bolted, returned, raised his hat from his forehead, and gazing upon Lucy with eyes in which an expression of sorrow overcame their late fierceness, spread his disheveled locks back from his face and said, "Do you know me, Miss Ashton? I am still Edgar Ravenswood." She was silent, and he went on with increasing vehemence, "I am still that Edgar Ravenswood who, for your affection, renounced the dear ties by which injured honor bound him to seek vengeance. I am that Ravenswood who, for your sake, forgave, nay, clasped hands in friendship with, the oppressor and pillager of his house-the traducer and murderer of his father." 11. "My daughter," answered Lady Ashton, interrupting him, "has no occasion to dispute the identity of your person; the venom of your present language is sufficient to remind her that she speaks with the mortal enemy of her father." "I pray you to be patient, madam," answered Ravenswood; "my answer must come from her own lips. Once more, Miss Lucy Ashton, I am that Ravenswood to whom you granted the solemn engagement which you now desire to retract and cancel." Lucy's bloodless lips could only falter out the words, "It was my mother." 12. "She speaks truly," said Lady Ashton: "it was I who, authorized alike by the laws of God and man, advised her and concurred with her to set aside an unhappy and precipitate engagement, and to annul it by the authority of Scripture itself." "Scripture!" said Ravenswood, scornfully. "Let him hear the text," said Lady Ashton, appealing to the divine, "on which you yourself, with cautious reluctance, declared the nullity of the pretended engagement insisted upon by this violent man." 13. The clergyman took his clasped Bible from his pocket and read the following words: "If a woman vow a vow unto the Lord, and bind herself by a bond, being in her father's house in her youth, and her father hear her vow and her bond, wherewith she hath bound her soul, and her father shall hold his peace at her-then all her vow shall stand, and every vow wherewith she hath bound her soul shall stand." "And was it not even so with us?" interrupted Ravenswood. "Control thy impatience, young man," answered the divine, “and hear what follows in the sacred text: 'But if her father disallow her in the day that he heareth, not any of her vows or of her bonds wherewith she hath bound her soul shall stand. And the Lord shall forgive her, because her father disallowed her.'" 14. "And was not," said Lady Ashton, fiercely and triumphantly breaking in-" was not ours the case stated in the holy writ? Will this person deny that the instant her parents heard of the vow or bond by which our daughter had bound her soul, we disallowed the same in the most express terms, and informed him by writing of our determination?” “And is this all?" said Ravenswood, looking at Lucy. "Are you willing to barter sworn faith, the exercise of free will and the feelings of mutual affection for this wretched hypocritical sophistry?" "Hear him!" said Lady Ashton, looking to the clergyman, "hear the blasphemer!" "May Heaven forgive him," said Bide-the-bent, "and enlighten his ignorance." 15. "Hear what I have sacrificed for you," said Ravenswood, still addressing Lucy, "ere you sanction what has been done in your name. The honor of an ancient family, the urgent advice of my best friends, have been in vain used to sway my resolution; neither the arguments of reason nor the portents of superstition have shaken my fidelity. The very dead have arisen to warn me, and their warning has been despised. Are you prepared to pierce my heart for its fidelity with the weapon which my rash confidence intrusted to your grasp?" But I will reply for 16. "Master of Ravenswood," said Lady Ashton, "you have asked what questions you thought fit. You see the total incapacity of my daughter to answer you. her, and in a manner which you cannot dispute. You desire to know whether Lucy Ashton, of her own free will, desires to annul the engagement into which she has been trepanned. You have her letter under her own hand, demanding the surrender of it; and, in yet more full evidence of her purpose, here is the contract which she has this morning subscribed, in presence of this reverend gentleman, with Mr. Hayston of Bucklaw." 17. Ravenswood gazed upon the deed as if petrified. "And it was without fraud or compulsion," said he, looking toward the clergyman, "that Miss Ashton subscribed this parchment?" "I vouch it upon my sacred character." "This is indeed, madam, an undeniable piece of evidence,” said Ravenswood, sternly, "and it will be equally unnecessary and dishonorable to waste another word in useless remonstrance or reproach. There, madam," he said, laying down before Lucy the signed paper and the broken piece of gold-"there are the evidences of your first engagement; may you be more faithful to that which you have just formed! I will trouble you to return the corresponding tokens of my ill-placed confidence-I ought rather to say of my egregious folly." 18. Lucy returned the scornful glance of her lover with a gaze from which perception seemed to have been banished, yet she seemed partly to have understood his meaning, for she raised her hands as if to undo a blue ribbon which she wore around her neck. She was unable to accomplish her purpose, but Lady Ashton cut the ribbon asunder, and detached the broken piece of gold which Miss Ashton had till then worn concealed in her bosom. The written counterpart of the lovers' engagement the mother had for some time had in her own possession. With a haughty curtsey, she delivered both to Ravenswood, who was much softened when he took the piece of gold. 19. "And she could wear it thus," he said, speaking to him self, "could wear it in her very bosom-could wear it next to her heart-even when But complaint avails not!" And he dashed from his eye the tear which had gathered in it and resumed the stern composure of his manner. He strode to the chimney and threw into the fire the paper and piece of gold, stamping upon the coals with the heel of his boot as if to insure their destruction. "I will be no longer," he then said, an intruder here. Your evil wishes and your worse offices, Lady Ashton, I will only return, by hoping these will be your last machinations against your daughter's honor and happiness. And to you, madam," he said, addressing Lucy, "I have nothing further to say, except to pray that you may not become a world's wonder for this act of willful and deliberate perjury." Having uttered these words, he turned on his heel and left the apartment. SCOTT. ... ... ... ... SELECT ETYMOLOGIES.-Allow: fr. L. ad and loc'o, I place; fr. loc'us, place.... Ample: L. am'plus, large; h., ampli-fy, amplitude.... Annul : L. nullus, none, no, no one; h., null, nulli-fy, nullity. Argument: fr. L. ar'guo, argu'tum, to accuse, to argue. ... Beseech: A. S. be and secan, to seek. Blaspheme: L. blasphe'mo; Gr. blasphe'měō, I revile, I blaspheme; h., blame. Chimney: fr. L. cami'nus, a furnace.... Colonel, lit., chief of the column; fr. F. colonne; L. colum'na, a column. . . . Consider: L. consid'ero, considera'tum, to look at closely. . . . Cumber: fr. L. cum'ulus, a heap. . Disheveled: fr. L. dis, and F. cheveu; L. capil'lus, the hair; h., to spread the hair in disorder. . . . Engage: F. engager, to enlist; fr. en, in, and gage, a pledge. . . . Enter: L. in'tro, I walk into; fr. in'ler, between. Escape: F. eschapper, to slip out of. . . . Machine: L. ma'china; h., machination. . . . Madam : fr. F. ma, my, and dame, lady. Manner: F. maniere, the handling of a thing; fr. L. manuaʼrius, of or belonging to the hand; fr. man'us, the hand; h., amanuensis (a person who writes what another dictates), e-mancipate (to take out by the hand -i. e., to set free), main-tain (man'us and ten'eo, I hold), manacle (handfetters), man-age, manip-ulation (manip'ulus, a handful; fr. ple'o, I fill), man-œuvre (man'us and F. œuvre; L. op'ero, work), manual, manu-facture, manu-mit (mit'to, I send), manure (to cultivate by manual labor), manuscript, etc. . . . Overture: F. ouverture, an opening; fr. L. aper'tus, uncovered. Paper: fr. L. papyrus, the paper-reed of Egypt. allel: Gr. parallē'lõs; fr. par'a, beside, and alle'lōn, of one another.. Parchment: L. perga-me'na; fr. Pergamos in Asia Minor, where first made. . . . Pistol: It. pistola, said to be from Pistola in Italy, where it was invented. Reiterate fr. L. it'erum, again, a second time; h., iterate, iteration. . . . Scandal: Gr. skan'dalon, a snare, a cause of offense. Sophistry: fr. the Gr. sophis'tēs, a captious or fallacious reasoner; fr. soph'Ŏs, wise, soph'ia, wisdom; h., phil-osophy (a lover of wisdom), theosophy (divine wisdom). . Title: L. tit'ulus; h., en-title, titular. . . . Trepan: fr. the A. S. treppe, a trap, treppan, to ensnare. . . . Trouble: v. DISTURB. Vehemence: L. vehemen'tia, eagerness, fervency. ... ... ... Par In such words as humor we find that theories which were long since renounced have yet left their traces behind them. Thus the words "good humor," "bad humor," "humors,” and, strangest contradiction of all, "dry humor," rest altogether on a now exploded but a very old and widely-extended theory of medicine, according to which there were four principal moistures or humors in the natural body, on the due proportion and combination of which the disposition alike of body and of mind depended. And temper, as used by us now, has its origin in the same theory.-Trench. LXXXVII.-THE LOTUS PLANTER. I. A BRAHMIN on a lotus pod Once wrote the holy name of God. II. A slave near by who bore a load And lifted up the fallen man. III. The deed scarce done, he looked aghast At touching one beneath his caste. "Behold!" he cried, "I stand unclean: My hands have clasped the vile and mean!" IV. God saw the shadow on his face, The buried seed arose from death, V. The stalk bore up a leaf of green, VI. The Brahmin, with bewildered brain, Beheld the will of God writ plain : Transfigured in a sudden light, The slave stood sacred in his sight. VII. Thenceforth within the Brahmin's mind Abode good will for all mankind. |