The Gypsy Queen's Vow

we never,

s heart e'en

w blessed we m

frowned so

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nce, I soon worked my way up above most of my titled compeers, and became ringleader and prime favorite with students and professors. They talk of good blood showing itself equally in men as in horses, mother. I don't know how that may be, but certain it is the gipsy's son equaled all, and was surpassed by none in college. In fencing, shooting, riding, boxing, rowing, I was as much at home as reading Virgil or translating Greek. If it is any consolation to you, mother, to know what an exceedingly talented son you h

l. Oh, it was a dreadful fate to look forward to-a chained, manacled convict for life-and so unjustly condemned! Wit

d not, spoke not; but the inflamed eyes gla

necessary, after all, as it will help to show the sort of estimation I was held in. When the vacations came, numberless were the invitations I received to accompany my fellow-students home. Having no home of my own to go to, I need hardly say those invitations were invariably accepted. How the good people who so lavishly bestowed their hospitality upon me feel now, is a q

owy face in the corner was as

ng to a similarity of tastes and dispositions, we were soon inseparable friends, Wherever one was, there the other was sure to be, until we were nicknamed 'Damon and Py

adow passed over his fine face. When he agai

y, that name was one of the proudest of England's proud sons, and her family one of the highest and noblest in the land. She was at Everly Hall, spending her vacation, too, and daily we were thrown together. I had never loved before-never felt even those first moonlight-on-water affairs that most young men rave about. My nature is not one of those that love lightly; but it was as resistless, as impetuous, as fierce and consuming as a volcano's fire, when it came. Mother, I did not love that beautiful child-woman. Love! Pshaw! that is a cold word to express what I felt-every moonstruck youth prates about his love. No; I adored, I worshipped, I idolized her; t

il every sense was intoxicated, the bewildering draught of her beauty, as she sat on her coal-black pony, her dark riding-habit fluttering in the morning breeze; her cheek flushed with health and happiness; her brilliant eyes, more glorious to me than all the stars in heaven; her bright, black hair flashing back the radiant sunlight! Oh! those long, moonlight strolls, ar

as she sat at the piano, and heard her stately lady-aunt whisper to a friend that, in a few more years, her 'lovely and accomplished niece' would become the bride of Lord Ernest Villiers, only son of Earl De Courcy, all that had hitherto restrained me from telling

I said, in a tone of passionate rep

ow, trembling voice. 'I never saw Lord Villiers, nor

ey?' I said, in a

aid, impulsi

t consequences. But our destinies had decreed we should, for the time, have things all our own way; and that night, wandering in the pale, solemn moonlight, I urged, with all the eloquence of a first, resistless passion, a secret marriage. I spoke of her father's compelling us to part; of his insisting on her marriage with one whom she could not love; I drew a touching description of myself, devoted to a life of solitude and misery, and probabl

his fine eyes were full o

ess within my grasp; and had an angel from heaven pleaded for the postponement of my designs, I would have hurled a refusal back in his face. I thought only of the present-of the joy, too intense, almost, to be borne-and I steadily shut my eyes to the future. I knew she would loathe, hate, and despis

ointed hour. Midnight found me waiting, at the trysting-place; and true to the hour, my beautiful bride, brave in the stren

e our own future misery. There was no time for words; but I strove to whisper of the happy days in store for us, as we rode along. She di

nicals, to sanction our mad marriage. Robed in a dark, flowing dress, with her white face looking out from her damp, flowin

tly bird of omen fluttered for a moment over our heads, and fell dead at our feet. Excited by the consciousness that she was doing wrong; the solemn, unlighted old church; the dread, mystic hour-

f his tone, the undying self-reproach

vived, and longer still before, with all the seductive el

rong!' was her sorrowful, rem

marriage. Now that the last, desperate step was taken, even I grew for a moment appalled at what I had done. But I did no

acquaintances. Looking back now on my past life, those are the only days of unalloyed sunshine I can remember in the

that, for the son of an exiled count, I was making too rapid progress in his daughter's affections, and peremptorily ordered her to discontinue the acquaintance. But she loved me well en

e off. The horses were half tamed things at best, and in the outskirts of a little village, several miles from the academy, they took fright at something, and started off like the win

she lay senseless, and bear her into the cottage. Fortunately, the cottage was owned by an old widow, to whom I had once rendered some slight service w

osed of until such times as we could resume our journey. Then I returned to the cottage; but found to my great alar

I sprung on horseback, and rode off to London for medical aid. But with all my haste, nearly twelve hours elapsed before I could

ject on which my eyes rested as I went in, was the old woman sitting with a ba

for whom she had given up everything was a gipsy; that her child bore in its veins the tainted gipsy blood. Disowned and despised by

rime than mine. I had never felt so fully, before, the wrong I had done her; and with the k

. The promise of being well paid made her readily answer in the affirmative; and then we concluded a bargain that she was to take care of the infant, and keep its existence a secret from every one, and, above all, from its mother. For I knew that she

had gone to visit a friend, and would not return for a fortnight, at least. As she had ever been a petted child, accustomed to go and come unquestioned, her absence excited no s

her all; how basely I had deceived her; how deeply I had wronged her. In that moment, every spark of love she had ever felt for me was quenched forever in her majestic indignation, her scorn, and utter contempt. Silently she arose and confronted me, white as the dead, su

you once professed still lingers in your breast, be silent as regards the past. I ask no more. You have forever blighted my life; but the world need never know what we once were to each other. If money is any object'-and her beautiful lip curled with a contempt to

met since. She is unmarried still, and the reigning belle of every gilded salon in London; but I know she never will, never can, forget the abyss of humiliation into which I dragged her down. For her sake, to injure her happiness, I would wil

s strong chest, his short, hard breathing, told, more than words could ever do, what he felt at that moment. An

was told it died the hour of its birth, and was buried while she was still unconscious. In this pocketbook you will find the address of the woman who keeps it; tell her the count-

e fixed, burning gaze of t

sorrowfully in her rigid, haggard face; "for the few hours that are left

seemed to issue from the jaws of death. "I will not go. I def

s my wish," h

wish that I should leave you? For fifteen years I have given you up,

guish, the utter woe, that rived that

elicate hand on hers, hard, coarse,

not tired of you-you wrong me by thinking so; but I have letters to write, and many matters to arrange before to-mo

se sunken eyes, this ghastly face, this haggard form, and ask when I have slep

, unhapp

ncely son under the same roof, with menials to come at his beck, he can sleep. Yes, he sleeps now

mother; this blow ha

veled down her back; her fierce eyes blazing with demoniacal light, one long, bony arm raised and pointing to heav

vengeance, if revenge that will never be satiated but by his misery, be delirium, then I am mad. I leave you now, Reginald, such is

he believes me guilty. I am not alarmed by your wild threats; f

t my vow! Reginald, if I thought that man could go to heaven, and I by some impossibility could b

the lamp, her face, as she sp

himself, as he gazed on that fiendish face. "Farewe

our chil

st a wretch as I am dare invoke Heav

broke in. "I would hurl it back in the

her chin, and stood ready to depart. The young man went to the door, and knocked loudly.

let you out. Once m

rning eyes, as she turned to take a last farewell of the son she idolized-the son she

kness like an evil shadow. The heavy door again swung to; the key turned in the lock; the son was alone in his condemned cell;