The Lake Gun and other Stories

“It is for Anna Miller,” said Julia with a flush of feeling.

“I was in hopes you would perform your promise to your cousin Katherine, now Miss Miller is gone, and make your portion of the garments for the Orphan Asylum,” returned Miss Emmerson gravely.

“Oh! cousin Katherine must wait. I promised this trimming to Anna to remember me by, and I would not disappoint the dear girl for the world.”

“It is not your cousin Katherine, but the Orphans, who will have to wait; and surely a promise to a relation is as sacred as one to an acquaintance.”

“Acquaintance, aunt!” echoed the niece with displeasure. “Do not, I entreat you, call Anna an acquaintance merely. She is my friend – my very best friend, and I love her as such.”

“Thank you, my dear,” said the aunt dryly.

“Oh! I mean nothing disrespectful to yourself, dear aunt,” continued Julia. “You know how much I owe to you, and ought to know that I love you as a mother.”

“And would you prefer Miss Miller to a mother, then?”

“Surely not in respect, in gratitude, in obedience; but still I may love her, you know. Indeed, the feelings are so very different, that they do not at all interfere with each other – in my heart at least.”

“No!” said Miss Emmerson, with a little curiosity – “I wish you would try and explain this difference to me, that I may comprehend the distinctions that you are fond of making.”

“Why, nothing is easier, dear aunt!” said Julia with animation. “You I love because you are kind to me, attentive to my wants, considerate for my good; affectionate, and – and – from habit – and you are my aunt, and take care of me.”

“Admirable reasons!” exclaimed Charles Weston, who had laid aside his book to listen to this conversation.

“They are forcible ones I must admit,” said Miss Emmerson, smiling affectionately on her niece; “but now for the other kind of love.”

“Why, Anna is my friend, you know,” cried Julia, with eyes sparkling with enthusiasm. “I love her, because she has feelings congenial with my own; she has so much wit, is so amusing, so frank, so like a girl of talents – so like – like every thing I admire myself.”

“It is a pity that one so highly gifted cannot furnish herself with frocks,” said the aunt, with a little more than her ordinary dryness of manner, “and suffer you to work for those who want them more.”

“You forget it is in order to remember me,” said Julia, in a manner that spoke her own ideas of the value of the gift.

“One would think such a friendship would not require any thing to remind one of its existence,” returned the aunt.

“Why! it is not that she will forget me without it, but that she may have something by her to remind her of me” said Julia rapidly, but pausing as the contradiction struck even herself.

“I understand you perfectly, my child,” interrupted the aunt, “merely as an unnecessary security, you mean.”

“To make assurance doubly sure,” cried Charles Weston with a laugh.

“Oh! you laugh, Mr. Weston,” said Julia with a little anger; “but I have often said, you were incapable of friendship.”

“Try me!” exclaimed the youth fervently. “Do not condemn me without a trial.”

“How can I?” said Julia, laughing in her turn. “You are not a girl.”

“Can girls then only feel friendship?” inquired Charles, taking the seat which Miss Emmerson had relinquished.

“I sometimes think so,” said Julia, with her own good-humoured smile. “You are too gross – too envious – in short, you never see such friendships between men as exist between women.”

“Between girls, I will readily admit,” returned the youth. “But let us examine this question after the manner of the courts

“Nay, if you talk law I shall quit you,” interrupted the young lady gaily.

“Certainly one so learned in the subject need not dread a cross-examination,” cried the youth, in her own manner.

“Well, proceed,” cried the lady. “I have driven aunt Margaret from the field, and you will fare no better, I can assure you.”

“Men, you say, are too gross to feel a pure friendship; in the first place, please to explain yourself on this point.”

“Why I mean, that your friendships are generally interested; that it requires services and good offices to support it.”

“While that of women depends on”

“Feeling alone.”

“But what excites this feeling?” asked Charles with a smile.

“What? why sympathy – and a knowledge of each other’s good qualities.”

“Then you think Miss Miller has more good qualities than Katherine Emmerson,” said Weston.

“When did I ever say so?” cried Julia in surprise.

“I infer it from your loving her better, merely,” returned the young man with a little of Miss Emmerson’s dryness.

“It would be difficult to compare them,” said Julia after a moment’s pause. “Katherine is in the world, and has had an opportunity of showing her merit; that Anna has never enjoyed. Katherine is certainly a most excellent girl, and I like her very much; but there is no reason to think that Anna will not prove as fine a young woman as Katherine, when put to the trial.”

“Pray,” said the young lawyer with great gravity, “how many of these bosom, these confidential friends can a young woman have at the same time?”

“One, only one – any more than she could have two lovers,” cried Julia quickly.

“Why then did you find it necessary to take that one from a set, that was untried in the practice of well-doing, when so excellent a subject as your cousin Katherine offered?”

“But Anna I know, I feel, is every thing that is good and sincere, and our sympathies drew us together. Katherine I loved naturally.”

“How naturally?”

“Is it not natural to love your relatives?” said Julia in surprise.

“No,” was the brief answer.

“Surely, Charles Weston, you think me a simpleton. Does not every parent love its child by natural instinct?”

“No: no more than you love any of your amusements from instinct. If the parent was present with a child that he did not know to be his own, would instinct, think you, discover their vicinity?”

“Certainly not, if they had never met before; but then, as soon as he knew it to be his, he would love it from nature.”

“It is a complicated question, and one that involves a thousand connected feelings,” said Charles. “But all love, at least all love of the heart, springs from the causes you mentioned to your aunt – good offices, a dependence on each other, and habit.”

“Yes, and nature too,” said the young lady rather positively; “and I contend, that natural love, and love from sympathy, are two distinct things.”

“Very different, I allow,” said Charles; “only I very much doubt the durability of that affection which has no better foundation than fancy.”

“You use such queer terms, Charles, that you do not treat the subject fairly. Calling innate evidence of worth by the name of fancy, is not candid.”

“Now, indeed, your own terms puzzle me,” said Charles, smiling. “What is innate evidence of worth?”

“Why, a conviction that another possesses all that you esteem yourself, and is discovered by congenial feelings and natural sympathies.”

“Upon my word, Julia, you are quite a casuist on this subject. Does love, then, between the sexes depend on this congenial sympathy and innate evidence?”

“Now you talk on a subject that I do not understand,” said Julia, blushing; and, catching up the highly prized work, she ran to her own room, leaving the young man in a state of mingled admiration and pity.

Chapter II

An anxious fortnight was passed by Julia Warren, after this conversation, without bringing any tidings from her friend. She watched, with feverish restlessness, each steam-boat that passed the door on its busy way towards the metropolis, and met the servant each day at the gate of the lawn on his return from the city; but it was only to receive added disappointments. At length Charles Weston good-naturedly offered his own services, laughingly declaring, that his luck was never known to fail. Julia herself had written several long epistles to Anna, and it was now the proper time that some of these should be answered, independently of the thousand promises from her friend of writing regularly from every post-office that she might pass on her route to the Gennessee. But the happy moment had arrived when disappointments were to cease. As usual, Julia was waiting with eager impatience at the gate, her lovely form occasionally gliding from the shrubbery to catch a glimpse of the passengers on the highway, when Charles appeared riding at a full gallop towards the house; his whole manner announced success, and Julia sprang into the middle of the road to take the letter which he extended towards her.

“I knew I should be successful, and it gives me almost as much pleasure as yourself that I have been so,” said the youth, dismounting from his horse and opening the gate that his companion might pass.

“Thank you – thank you, dear Charles,” said Julia kindly. “I never can forget how good you are to me – how much you love to oblige not only me, but every one around you. Excuse me now. I have this dear letter to read: another time, I will thank you as I ought.”

So saying, Julia ran into the summer-house, and fastening its door, gave herself up to the pleasure of reading a first letter. Notes and short epistles from her aunt, with divers letters from Anna written slyly in the school-room and slipped into her lap, she was already well acquainted with; but of real, genuine letters, stamped by the post-office, rumpled by the mail-bags, consecrated by the steam-boat, this was certainly the first. This, indeed, was a real letter: rivers rolled, and vast tracts of country lay, between herself and its writer, and that writer was a friend selected on the testimony of innate evidence. It was necessary for Julia to pause and breathe before she could open her letter; and by the time this was done, her busy fancy had clothed both epistle and writer with so much excellence, that she was prepared to peruse the contents with a respect bordering on enthusiasm: every word must be true – every idea purity itself. That our readers may know how accurately sixteen and a brilliant fancy had qualified her to judge, we shall give them the letter entire.

My dearest love,

“Oh, Julia! here I am, and such a place! – no town, no churches, no Broadway, nothing that can make life desirable; and, I may add, no friend – nobody to see and talk with, but papa and mamma, and a house full of brothers and sisters. You can’t think how I miss you, every minute more and more; but I am not without hopes of persuading pa to let me spend the winter with your aunt in town. I declare it makes me sick every time I think of her sweet house in Park-place. If ever I marry, and be sure I will, it shall be a man who lives in the city, and next door to my Julia. Oh! how charming that would be. Each of us to have one of those delightful new houses, with the new-fashioned basement stories; we would run in and out at all hours of the day, and it would be so convenient to lend and borrow each other’s things. I do think there is no pleasure under heaven equal to that of wearing things that belong to your friend. Don’t you remember how fond I was of wearing your clothes at school, though you were not so fond of changing as myself; but that was no wonder, for pa’s stinginess kept me so shabbily dressed, that I was ashamed to let you be seen in them. Oh, Julia! I shall never forget those happy hours; nor you neither. Apropos – I hope you have not forgot the frock you promised to work for me, to remember you by. I long for it dreadfully, and hope you will send it before the river shuts. I suppose you and Charles Weston do nothing but ride round among those beautiful villas on the island, and take comfort. I do envy you your happiness, I can tell you; for I think any beau better than none, though Mr. Weston is not to my taste. I am going to write you six sheets of paper, for there is nothing that I so delight in as communing with a friend at a distance, especially situated as I am without a soul to say a word to, unless it be my own sisters. Adieu, my ever, ever beloved Julia – be to me as I am to you, a friend indeed, one tried and not found wanting. In haste, your

“ANNA.“

Gennessee, June 15, 1816.

“P. S. Don’t forget to jog aunt Emmerson’s memory about asking me to Park-place.

“P. S. June 25th. Not having yet sent my letter, although I am sure you must be dying with anxiety to hear how we get on, I must add, that we have a companion here that would delight you – a Mr. Edward Stanley. What a delightful name! and he is as delightful as his name: his eye, his nose, his whole countenance, are perfect. In short, Julia, he is just such a man as we used to draw in our conversation at school. He is rich, and brave, and sensible, and I do nothing but talk to him of you. He says, he longs to see you; knows you must be handsome; is sure you are sensible; and feels that you are good. Oh! he is worth a dozen Charles Westons. But you may give my compliments to Mr. Weston, though I don’t suppose he ever thinks it worth his while to remember such a chick as me. I should like to hear what he says about me, and I will tell you all Edward Stanley says of you. Once more, adieu. Your letters got here safe and in due season. I let Edward take a peep at them.”

The first time Julia read this letter she was certainly disappointed. It contained no descriptions of the lovely scenery of the west. The moon had risen and the sun had set on the lakes of the interior, and Anna had said not one word of either. But the third and fourth time of reading began to afford more pleasure, and at the thirteenth perusal she pronounced it charming. There was evidently much to be understood; vacuums that the fancy could easily fill; and, before Julia had left the summer-house, the letter was extended, in her imagination, to the promised six sheets. She walked slowly through the shrubbery towards the house, musing on the contents of her letter, or rather what it might be supposed to contain, and unconsciously repeating to herself in a low tone –

“Young, handsome, rich, and sensible – just as we used to paint in our conversation. Oh, how delightful!”

“Delightful indeed, to possess all those fine qualities; and who is the happy individual that is so blessed?” asked Charles Weston, who had been lingering in the walks with an umbrella to shield her on her return from an approaching shower.

“Oh!” said Julia, starting, “I did not know you were near me. I have been reading Anna’s sweet letter,” pressing the paper to her bosom as she spoke.

“Doubtless you must be done by this time, Julia, and,” pointing to the clouds, “you had better hasten to the house. I knew you would be terrified at the lightning all alone by yourself in that summer-house, so I came to protect you.”

“You are very good, Charles, but does it lighten?” said Julia in terror, and hastening her retreat to the dwelling.

“Your letter must have interested you deeply not to have noticed the thunder – you, who are so timid and fearful of the flashes.”

“Foolishly fearful, you would say, if you were not afraid of hurting my feelings, I know,” said Julia.

“It is a natural dread, and therefore not to be laughed at,” answered Charles mildly.

“Then there is natural fear, but no natural love, Mr. Charles; now you are finely caught,” cried Julia exultingly.

“Well, be it so. With me fear is very natural, and I can almost persuade myself love also.”

“I hope you are not a coward, Charles Weston. A cowardly man is very despicable. I could never love a cowardly man,” said Julia, laughing.

“I don’t know whether I am what you call a coward,” said Charles gravely; “but when in danger I am always afraid.”

The words were hardly uttered before a flash of lightning, followed instantly by a tremendously heavy clap of thunder, nearly stupified them both. The suddenness of the shock had, for a moment, paralyzed the energy of the youth, while Julia was nearly insensible. Soon recovering himself, however, Charles drew her after him into the house, in time to escape a torrent of rain. The storm was soon over, and their natural fear and surprise were a source of mirth for Julia. Women are seldom ashamed of their fears, for their fright is thought to be feminine and attractive; but men are less easy under the imputation of terror, as it is thought to indicate an absence of manly qualities.

“Oh! you will never make a hero, Charles,” cried Julia, laughing heartily. “It is well you chose the law instead of the army as a profession.”

“I don’t know,” said the youth, a little nettled, “I think I could muster courage to face a bullet.”

“But remember, that you shut your eyes, and bent nearly double at the flash – now you owned all this yourself.”

“At least he was candid, and acknowledged his infirmities,” said Miss Emmerson, who had been listening.

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