No. 68.] London Magazine: A JOURNAL OF ENTERTAINMENT AND INSTRUCTION FEBRUARY 13, 1847. BIANCA.-A BALLA D.1 BY JAMES BANDINEL, C.L.K. Ir was a summer evening, by the deep deep azure sea The gentle breeze, the rippling seas, were lulling him to rest; And the clouds that had been white that morn were rob'd in crimson state, And a maiden stands upon the strand, and gazes on the sea, And tell her that the hour is come to seek the trysting place. "Four weeks have pass'd since last we met-why make this long delay! And yet my bosom tells me he will surely come to-day; Yes, though he tarries he will come, come to redeem his plight, And place the ring upon the hand already his by right; Yes, though I be a peasant girl of joyous Tuscany, And he an English gentleman of wealth and high degree!" Oh she was brilliant as the light, and lovely as the dream, Her form surpass'd whate'er the art of sculptor yet hath given,- And now another form appears, his face is thin and pale, His reverend head is white with years, and yet his step is hale, "The shadows of the mountain peaks are stealing o'er the bay, "Nay, father, do not stay me now, I will not go again; But this a vow that I have made, and I must not refrain." “Ah, daughter, vows which maidens make are seldom wise or good, I know thy secret, and I seek to save thee from the fate, A life of desolation-and a death-bed of despair. What though thy form be graceful as the lily in its pride? (1) See Illustration on the preceding page. No guiding lamp, no beacon light, it beckons thee, poor lass, "Nay, father! holy father! I cannot, cannot stay, And she is gone-and he remains to breathe the fervent pray'r, And call on Heaven to save her from the many tangled snare-- And she has reached the trysting place-but he is not yet there, And she hath knelt, and offered up a deep, though silent prayer. But hark! that sound!-she turns her round, with swift and sylphlike grace, And lifts her hand to shade her eyes, and screen her gentle face ; On yon hill-side appearing, she sees a cavalcade The fountain they are nearing,-why does she feel afraid? Their leader gives the word to halt, and now moves on alone; "Tis he, she cannot err, 'tis he-her Edgar, still her own. One piercing shriek Bianca gave; and now her pangs are o'er; She draws across her breast the sign which tells how JESUS died, And the holy father joins them in the bonds of wedded love, To dwell in ancient British halls, and mix with nobles high; There were few in grace or beauty with Bianca could compare. Yet though she grac'd both court and hall, and shone amongst the great, A comfort to the sorrowful, a shelter to the meek; She ne'er forgot that though our God hath fixed by firm decree THE MAIDEN AUNT.-No. III. CHAP. I. "PEGGY," said Owen to me, one morning, as he threw himself back in his easy chair after completing the perusal of the newspaper, "did you know that poor Kinnaird had left a daughter?" What an inexplicable creature I am! I have passed my forty-fifth birthday, but I cannot yet hear that name uttered without emotion! However, Owen is the last person in the world to suspect such thing, and the last person I should wish to suspect it; so, after a moment's pause, I answered, in my usual tone, 'Yes, I remember to have heard it. And is she your ward, as well as the son?" "Even so," replied he; "and an immense heiress she is a beauty too, they tell me. She is past eighteen, and cannot be kept any longer at school, so I have now the agreeable task of finding some one to take care of her till she is pleased to relieve me of the responsibility by her marriage, which I should think will not be a very distant event. I wish you would take her off my hands in the mean time." My dear Owen, you are not in earnest. I cannot fancy any one less fitted than myself for such a charge." "Don't be modest, sister. You know, without compliment, you are the very best manager in the world, and you have that kind of knack at discovering and indulging the peculiarities of those with whom you live, which would make you an invaluable companion." "Yes, yes," interrupted I, in a bantering tone, “you made that discovery when you and I tried the experiment of living together eight years ago. I suited you to a nicety." "Oh, then indeed," returned Owen, making a long face and looking a little embarrassed, for the experiment alluded to had been a complete failure, and had been abandoned by mutual consent at the end of the first month; "but that, you know, was a peculiar case; and after all, when I think it over, I am convinced it was more my fault than yours-wholly my fault, I may say. I am not now exactly what I was then." "Of course not," replied I gravely, "eight years have been allowed to you since then for the study and improvement of your character, and you are doubtless an altered man. Suppose we try the experiment again -I am perfectly ready, and I have no doubt it would come this time to a widely different issue." Owen's candid and complimentary humour was a little at fault here; he had not expected to be so immediately taken at his word. "Why, to say the truth," began he, with some confusion," my confirmed bachelor habits--" "What are you saying about your confirmed bachelor habits?" cried our friend, Mrs. Alvanley, entering the room, and proving to Owen, at least, a very welcome interruption to the conversation. "I will not allow any such high treason to be talked in my house." Mrs. Alvanley was a lively handsome widow about Owen's own age; that is to say, somewhere on the verge of five-and-thirty. She was not deficient in ability, though extremely fond of dress and amusementstastes which her small means gave her very few opportunities of indulging. Before her marriage she had received considerable attention from Owen, who, it must be confessed, had always been a great flirt, though I do not think that he had ever fairly committed himself with any one; certainly not with Mrs. Alvanley. She was now suspected of a design of reconquering her former vassal, with how much reason I cannot pretend to say; but it is certain that she liked and sought Owen's society, while he, on his part, appeared, to a cool looker on, quite willing to resume the footing, half playful, half sentimental, on which he had formerly stood with her, and quite determined not to advance an inch beyond it. The usual residence of this lady was near Alford, a country town in Devonshire, in the neighbour hood of which the happy years of my youth had been passed, and where I had many friends. At present, however, a cousin who lived at Teignmouth had lent her a house for the month of October, and she had invited Owen and myself to become her guests. Owen turned towards her with that air of ready deference which, sometimes mingled with a shade of sarcasm discoverable only by a quick observer, characterized his demeanour towards women, especially towards those in whose good graces he thought it worth while to secure a place. "It would indeed be a rash man who should venture to celebrate the praises of single blessedness in your presence," said he, with an equivocal smile. "But you are come in the very nick of time. I want your advocacy. We were talking about the Kinnairds. "No such thing," cried I, "we were talking of the time when Owen and I tried to live together, and found that we couldn't bear each other. Do you remember it, Mrs. Alvanley?" "To be sure I do," replied she, laughing. "All the world said there would be a permanent coolness in consequence, but I knew you both better. Let us call upon your brother to justify his share in the transaction, and afterwards we will hear your defence. Now, Mr. Forde, what have you to say for yourself?" Mrs. Alvanley wanted the fine perception and quick feeling which constitute tact, or she would have seen that Owen found the subject irksome and wanted to get away from it. He, however, fell readily enough into her playful tone for the moment. "I will be judged by you," cried he; "no man could begin with better intentions than I did I might almost say that no man could have endured more. Patiently did I suffer myself to be initiated into the mysteries of housekeeping. I knew when we had lamb in the house, and when we had mutton hanging up, and when the cook had tried all over the market and there was not such a thing as a bit of fish to be heard of. It was acquainted familiarly with the statistics of disease in the poultry-yard, and learned gradually to distinguish between pip and croop.-Once I labelled a dozen jars of raspberry jam in a single morning, another time I voluntarily reprimanded the housemaid when Peggy was afraid to speak to her." "Owen, how can you be so absurd ?" interrupted I, laughing, though inwardly annoyed. "Well," continued he, still addressing Mrs. Alvanley, "all this and more I encountered like a man; but at last one morning-I think we had been living together about three weeks-my sister suddenly and without preparation, without breaking it to me, but as if it were the pleasantest and most natural thing in the world, proposed to me to give a children's party!" Now, Owen, how can you exaggerate so dreadfully?" cried I. You know very well I only wanted to have Emily Drew's two sweet children, to spend the day with me." But "Sweet children, I have no doubt they were," returned Owen, "breathing the very essence of lollipops. you were to have the little Harrisons to meet them. I stand to that. I have a vivid recollection of having a distinct, separate horror of the little Harrisons, over and above those two sweet Drews." "Well, I believe I did talk of it," said I. "There now!" cried Owen, "you see how far she is to be depended on! And there are five of the little Harrisons! Now I leave you to imagine my feelings on such an announcement. At first, I thought it was impossible, and then I thought she was insane; or, said I to myself, have I been living all this time in a dream, and am I not a bachelor after all, but am I a married man, and is this my wife? For you know it was inconceivable that any woman, kindly exempted by nature from the trouble of children, should endeavour to procure an artificial offspring for herself. That was out of the question." 'Owen, you really anger me," said I; "Mrs. Alvan ley, how can you let him talk in that manner? There | "Yes, I will wait-very patiently too," answered Owen; "I would much rather have half-a-dozen kittens than those two sweet little Drews that Peggy is so fond of. A kitten is at least pretty, and graceful, and amusing, which a child is not; and you can always take it by the nape of the neck, and drop it into the cellar when you are tired of it a thing which I should like to do in a similar case with a child, if it were not for the tumult which mothers and nurses would be sure to make about it." "I cannot understand how you can laugh at him, Mrs. Alvanley," said I. "To me it is perfectly shocking. I have heard him say before, that he likes animals better than children, and I never can bear it. It is degrading to think of those dear little immortal souls, and then "Now, Peggy," interrupted Owen, "what can you know about the size of their immortal souls?" "Come, don't teaze her so," said Mrs. Alvanley; "and my dear Miss Forde, how can you take everything so entirely au pied de la lettre? You do not understand your brother, yet, after all, he is not so very enigmatical. But it certainly is necessary to comprehend a person's character thoroughly, in order to live happily with him, and so I think it was very well that you two gave up keeping house together." "And left me at liberty till I should meet with some one who can and does understand me," said Owen, with a bow and smile, which rendered the compliment so broad, as effectually to destroy its point. But don't be wrathful, Peggy, I am only plaguing you. Let us go back to the Kinnairds." "I had forgotten them," said I. "Who are those Kinnairds?" inquired Mrs. Alvanley. "Frank Kinnaird was a great favourite of my father's," replied Owen. "He was ten years older than myself, or more; and many and many a tip has he given me when I was a schoolboy and he a young man. Poor fellow! He married a great heiress, to pay his debts I believe, for he was imprudent enough. She had a temper which made his house an absolute pandemonium; and he had not been married to her above a twelvemonth, when some distant relation died and left him a hundred thousand pounds-so he need not have sacrificed himself after all. How many years is it since Kinnaird died, Peggy, do you recollect?" "Six years this summer," returned I, without lifting my eyes from my work. Did I recollect! "So it is, I declare," said Owen. How time slides away! Well, he left me sole guardian to his children. Mrs. Kinnaird, I forgot to say, had died a year before. The boy went to college of course, and had a commission in the guards afterwards. He is the very counterpart of his father, in character; but, luckily for him, he had money enough to waste, so I was not forced to interfere with his amusements, and he has now been several years off my hands. The girl was younger. She was taken, at first, by a Scotch aunt, Kinnaird's sister, who lived in the highlands; and, just as I was beginning to think that a young lady of her expectations must necessarily acquire a few more accomplishments than she was likely to get in the region of gray mountains and oat cakes, this aunt very obligingly died, and I ran down there for a month, got some capital grouse-shooting, and brought my fair ward up to a first-rate London establishment to finish her education." "Was she an engaging girl?" asked I, with irrepressible interest. "She was rather under fifteen at the time," replied Owen, "and I have Lord Byron's horror of budding misses. Besides, she cried without intermission during the whole month, so that I had really no opportunity of judging of her personal appearance, further than that she was tall of her age, and had a most splendid head of dark brown hair: I remember noticing that particularly." "I dare say she is well-looking enough to pass for a beauty when seen through the flattering medium of-how many thousand pounds?" observed Mrs. Alvanley. "Seventy," returned Owen; "a pretty little fortune, is it not? But now comes the difficulty: this young lady is eighteen years old: a woman grown, as you see." "In her own estimation, doubtless," interposed Mrs. Alvanley; "but most girls are little more than children at eighteen. She must be classed for a few years more among those budding misses of whom you and Lord Byron have so great a horror." I was inwardly amused as I thought of Mrs. Alvanley's five-and-thirty years. Owen, who was growing rather cross as he found himself so repeatedly interrupted in his approaches to the point he was resolved to carry, answered her by saying in his blandest tones "Nay, Mrs. Alvanley, would you have me believe that the mind does not attain to maturity till the person has begun to lose its first bloom? Forgive me for differing from you; but, I remember you at eighteen." The lady was effectually silenced, and quite uncertain whether she had received a compliment or an affront. Owen, who had intended to produce this very effect upon her, went on triumphantly, and finished his history without further disturbance. Well, as I was observing, Miss Edith Kinnaird,— (it is exactly the name for a heroine of romance)—was eighteen three months ago, and can't be kept at school any longer. My friend, Lady Frances Moore, has undertaken to superintend her debut in the spring, so that trouble is off my hands: but here is October, and what in the name of ingenuity is to be done with her in the interval? Now I appeal to you, Mrs. Alvanley, whether it would not be an extremely pleasant thing for Peggy to pass the next five months in an elegant mansion, surrounded with all the luxuries of life, with no other drawback than the society of a high-born and highly-educated girl, in whom she may be supposed to feel some interest for her father's sake?" "Were I your sister," replied Mrs. Alvanley, with animation, "I should consider such a suggestion as a very great favour. It is exactly the position I should like; and I also think it is that for which I am best fitted. What say you, Miss Forde?" A sudden horror here came over Owen, that Mrs. Alvanley was going to propose to take charge of Miss Kinnaird herself. With his characteristic caution, he felt in a moment that such an arrangement might |