MILES TREMENHERE.

"For such a love, O Rachel! years are few, and
life is short!"—Lopez de Vega.

BY ANNETTE MARIE MAILLARD.

AUTHORESS OF "THE COMPULSORY MARRIAGE," "ZINGRA THE GIPSY," ETC., ETC.

IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.

LONDON:
G. ROUTLEDGE & CO., FARRINGDON STREET.
1853.

M'CORQUODALE AND CO., PRINTERS, LONDON.
WORKS—NEWTON.

TO
ERASMUS WILSON, ESQ., F.R.S.
IT IS ONE OF THE HIGHEST PRIVILEGES OF AUTHORSHIP,
TO BE ENABLED TO OFFER A PUBLIC TRIBUTE,
HOWEVER HUMBLE,
TO THOSE WHO CLAIM OUR RESPECT:
THIS BOOK
IS DEDICATED TO ONE—THE PATRON OF STRUGGLING TALENT,
THE FRIEND OF THE POOR—
ONE, WHOSE FRIENDSHIP IS AN ESTEEMED HONOUR.
THE AUTHORESS.

Departure of Tremenhere

MILES TREMENHERE.

CHAPTER I.

"Tick tack, tick tack, tick tack—for ever goes the large hall clock, until my heart (imitative thing!) plays at pendulum with it! Seventeen long years that clock has been the monitor of Time in this old house. It commenced its career the day I came into this world, and, faithful to its trust, not for one hour can I remember its pausing. They say it ceased its vigilance one day; I do not remember it, but Aunt Dorcas once told me—only once, for she cried so bitterly that I never liked asking more about it. It was the one in which I became an orphan! My poor mother died, and they stopped it because its ticking reminded them of the day of my birth, when she bade them open her door to let her hear the friend whose career commenced with my life—the friend who was to lead me to be good and happy, warning me of every passing hour! Poor, dear mamma! I wish I had known her—oh, how I wish that now!—for though my aunts and uncle Juvenal are very kind and loving, yet 'tis not like a mother's love, I feel that—I feel so much yearning for that unknown thing; it must be so beautiful, but one step below divinity in its hallowing power; and I, wicked girl, have been chiding the old hall clock, which she had a fanciful thought to make my twin!" Here the girl (for such was the speaker) paused awhile in her soliloquy; after a few moments, she continued:—"But 'tis wearisome to sit for days and days, with only the same routine of events which you have known for years; even the variety of the past six months offers no amusement. The lawyer, the parson, and the squire—the squire, the lawyer, and the parson—with my aunts Dorcas, Sylvia, and uncle Juvenal, each one chanting the praises of his or her pet. I daresay it is very wrong of me to think all this; but I don't love them less, my dear aunts, my kind uncle. Oh! especially him and aunt Dorcas; but I cannot like—rather I should say love—the squire and the young clergyman, even for their sakes. I didn't want to think of love yet; but they have set me thinking, and now I am always dreaming of the sort of man I should like. If there be heroes in the world I should like to find one—such a one as I could love, tall, handsome, dark, dark! Yes, dark raven hair, and Spanish eyes, pale and thoughtful, especially"——Here the soliloquy was disturbed by a shrill voice beneath the window, calling upwards from the garden, "Minnie, Minnie, child!"

"That's aunt Sylvia," said the soliloquist quietly. "I will not answer, for if I do, I know she will want to go for a ramble somewhere, and we shall assuredly meet the lawyer."

The voice below continued its summons, but in the distance; the caller evidently was seeking through the garden.

"I wonder when my cousin Dora will come," said the Minnie of Sylvia's seeking again. "And I wonder if she is very handsome; they say so:—though only three years older than myself, I was always afraid of her, even as a child. She was so tall and commanding, though but a girl of fifteen then—now she's twenty; and she looked so stern, with her proud curling lip which never smiled; even at play, her play was queenly and condescending. I see her now, when she was at her gymnastic exercises; how graceful she looked flinging upwards the hoop, which always returned unerringly to the stick, as if it durst not disobey her will. Mine often rebelled, and fell yards off; and, whilst I put myself in a fever to catch it, she was calm and pale, and if she involuntarily sprang upwards to meet it, with what a calm grace she lighted on the toe of one of her tiny feet with the obedient toy in her keeping! There was pride even in that action, for her foot seemed to disdain the earth. It was the only thing I disliked in Dora, her pride as a child; it awed me. I hope it will not do so now. I want to love her. We cannot love where we fear, and I hope she will love me whenever she comes; and yet I feel so nervous at the thought of seeing her, though"——Here another voice arose on the ear; this, too, came from the garden. "Minnie, Minnie; where are you, Minnie?" it said.

"That's my uncle Juvenal," whispered the girl, peeping through the window, with its antique panes and narrow casement, "and he's not alone. I guessed as much. How he can like Marmaduke Burton, the squire, I cannot imagine."

"Minnie," cried a soft voice, evidently in the direction of the great hall clock, "are you up-stairs, dear?"

"Dear aunt Dorcas," whispered the girl softly; "shall I go to her?" She moved towards the door of her chamber. At that moment, from beneath her window, arose a hum of voices, and Sylvia's shrilly tones called, "Minnie;" then a man's, but a very weak one, and rougher accents, syllabled her name; these latter ones not calling, but in conversation, and they said, "Miss Dalzell." The one so anxiously sought sat down, and laughed gently to herself. "My aunt and uncle, and their pets! Which shall be mine? Whom shall I marry? Fate, direct me!" and, with a playful air, she took up a bracelet of large coral from her table, and commenced counting. "The last must be my choice, I suppose: let's see, coral! Whom will you favour?" And thus she ran on, a bead for each name: "The squire, the lawyer, the parson; the squire, the lawyer, the"—here the string broke, and her lovers rolled in confusion on the floor! "Alas! and alas!" she cried, with much gravity, surveying the scattered beads, "none of them? Well, when I have a lover, I'll string him on the chords of my heart; and when they fail and let him down to earth, why, I shall be there too, in my grave, my heart's strings broken: that's how I understand love!"

"My dear child, why did you not answer me?" asked a quiet-looking, elderly woman, entering her room. "I have been seeking you every where."

"Dear aunt Dorcas," said Minnie, throwing her arms tenderly round her neck; "I was afraid to reply, for my uncle and aunt Sylvia are in the garden—not alone either—and they would have heard me."

"Who is there with them at this early hour, dear?" As she spoke she released the girl's arms, and seated her beside herself on a couch, affectionately holding both her little white hands.

"Oh!" rejoined Minnie, "that horrid Marmaduke Burton, and Mr. Dalby, the lawyer; and I dislike them both so much, as they appear now."

"How do you mean, child?"

"Oh! why—as—as—lovers. No, not lovers—suitors."

"Where's the distinction, Minnie?" asked her aunt, smiling.

Minnie looked down and blushed; then, looking up half timidly in the other's face, replied, "I think a man may take it into his head to pay you attention, wishing to marry you, but he does not love you for all that; and I think, if a man