Читать книгу Graham's Magazine, Vol XXXIII, No. 6, December 1848 - Various - Страница 3

A few years and Helen, more beautiful than ever, again made her appearance in society, and again Mr. Dundass cherished his darling dream of her forming some high connection. Little Mildred, in the meanwhile, having been sent to England under the charge of a faithful nurse, to receive her education.

A second time, however, was Mr. Dundass doomed to disappointment. The charming and attractive young widow gave her hand to Mr. Donaldson, a Scotch gentleman, whose only recommendation in the eyes of Mr. Dundass was a showy exterior and a superb set of teeth. He had known him for many years, and had always regarded him as more shrewd than honest, and one who, where his own interests were concerned, would let no scruples of conscience stand in the way of his advancement. He thought him rich, but he had much rather he had been poor, if able to boast a titled descent. The idea, therefore, of this second marriage of his daughter gave him in reality as little satisfaction as the first. His reluctant consent was, however, at length obtained, and Helen borne off a second time a bride from her father's house.

The plantation of Mr. Donaldson was delightfully located in a most lovely region of hill and dale, sparkling with delicious rivulets, and sprinkled with charming groves of the deep-tinted pimento, the graceful palm, and magnificent cotton-trees, and the air rife with the fragrance of the orange and citron blossoms, through which, like winged jewels, glanced birds of the most brilliant plumage. Whatever may have been the errors which Mr. Dundass detected in the moral character of Mr. Donaldson, he was a most tender and devoted husband; and in this paradise to which he had brought her, the happiness of Helen seemed perfect. The Cascade, as Mr. Donaldson had named his station, from the numerous little rills and waterfalls in the neighborhood, was distant fifty miles from Mount Dundass, yet the intercourse between father and daughter continued uninterrupted until the infirmities of age pressing upon Mr. Dundass, rendered his visits to the Cascade less frequent, and the cares of a growing family confining Mrs. Donaldson more closely at home.

Helen was now the mother of several children, charming, bright little girls, yet it was strange that Mr. Dundass never seemed to regard them in the same tender light he did Mildred Ward. Mr. Donaldson had never seen Mildred, but already in his heart he hated her. The partiality of the grandfather rankled his inmost soul, for he saw plainly it would interfere with the prospects of his own children. Indeed, Mr. Dundass had already settled fifty thousand dollars upon his granddaughter Mildred, asserting also that at his death that sum should be doubled. Mr. Donaldson possessed great influence over his wife – his words to her were oracles – his wishes laws. By degrees, therefore, he instilled into her mind a jealousy against her absent child, mingled with feelings of resentment toward her father, that, to the exclusion of her little Grace and Anna, he should have made her the object of his love and munificence. This feeling once engendered Mr. Donaldson took good care to keep alive. The poison worked slowly but so secretly, that no doubt Helen herself would have been shocked could she have read her own heart and found that, instigated by jealousy, a mother's tenderness for her first-born was fast turning to bitterness.

In the meantime seventeen rosy summers had flitted as some fairy dream over the head of Mildred, when her grandfather, no longer able to resist his desire of seeing her, urged her return to Jamaica.