CHAPTER XXXVI.

ETOILE COMES INTO HER ESTATE.

“But what are these grave thoughts to thee? For restlessly, impatiently, Thou strivest, strugglest to be free: Thy only dream is liberty.”—_Longfellow._

Mr. Luxmore returned early in November, bringing many rare presents for Etoile, consisting of costly books and pictures, an elegant paint-box, furnished with drawing materials, model plaster casts and marble statuettes, an exquisitely sweet-toned lute, and a collection of fine music.

It was in Etoile’s boudoir that these attractive presents were displayed to her delighted eyes.

“Ah, how beautiful! how glorious! how heavenly! must be that world, whence all these charming things come!” she exclaimed.

Mr. Luxmore smiled at her hallucination.

“Ah! when shall I, too, see that lovely world?”

“When you are married, Etoile.”

“When I am married,”—softly repeated this child of nature—“and shall _I_ ever be married?”

“Certainly, fair one.”

“And to whom shall I be married?” she inquired, looking up in innocent surprise.

“Do you not know then?” asked Julius Luxmore, gazing wistfully into her eyes.

“No, indeed, Mr. Luxmore, no one ever told me,” she answered artlessly, without dropping her pure unconscious eyes.

“I thought you understood that you were destined to be my bride.”

“Your bride? No, indeed, I did not know that before Mr. Luxmore! Did uncle wish it?”

“Certainly, my fair one. Besides, it is your interest.”

“I need no inducement to obey my dearest uncle, Mr. Luxmore; but when are we to be married then?”

“Are you in a hurry?”

“Oh, yes!” answered the innocent creature with a deep sigh of aspiration.

“But why?” inquired Mr. Luxmore, curiously.

“Oh!” she replied, with another deep inspiration, “because I do so _long_ to go to the beautiful world beyond!”

“And you wish to get married that you may go thither?”

“Oh! yes, indeed!” she said, clasping her hands fervently. “When shall we be married, Mr. Luxmore?”

“In some few months from this.”

“So long! Oh, Mr. Luxmore! why can it not be now?”

“Because, my lovely girl, you have not yet reached a marriageable age.”

“And what age is that?”

“No matter, my dear, you have not reached it.”

“But, oh, Mr. Luxmore, how can you say that? I have read in history, again and again, of princes and princesses married in their cradles. There was the Princess Elizabeth of Hungary, and the Prince of Thuringia, and many others.”

“But they were princes.”

“And am not I a princess?”

“Yes, my sweet! by virtue of your beauty, genius and goodness, you are a princess; but in no other wise,” replied Julius Luxmore, thinking that the time had now come for this explanation.

“How, in no other wise?”

Mr. Luxmore proceeded to explain to her that the Island kingdom, king and princess, had been merely a pleasant phantasy on the part of her late uncle. Not for the world would Mr. Luxmore have risked the danger that might have grown out of his communicating to the young heiress the fact that Monsieur Henri De L’Ile was of unsound mind, and, consequently, legally incapacitated to execute the instrument which constituted himself, Julius Luxmore, the sole guardian of the young heiress and her large estate.

Etoile received the news with less surprise than might have been expected.

“I am satisfied now,” she said, “upon a point that for a long time troubled me.”

“And what was that?”

“I used to pick out our Island in the map of the United States, and I found that it was an adjunct to the State of Maryland. Therefore, you see, I could not understand how it should be a little kingdom.”

“And you are not much disappointed to find that it is not?”

“Oh, no, no; on the contrary, I am glad to understand clearly my real condition.”

“And yet, fair one, in some sense our beautiful Island is really a kingdom, and we are its sovereigns.” Julius Luxmore henceforth always spoke in the first person plural thus associating himself with Etoile and her estate—it was to accustom her to consider him as a joint proprietor.

“How then, Mr. Luxmore, since, our Isle”—(the simple girl followed his lead in the use of the plural pronoun)—“is not a kingdom in all respects, can it be a kingdom in some senses? and how then are we in _any_ sense sovereigns?”

“Thus, my sweet. Our Island is our undivided possession, cut off from all the rest of the world——”

——“The beautiful world!”—interrupted Etoile.

“Over this insulated possession we have far more power than a king has over his kingdom. We can let it, lease it sell it, or bequeath it to whomsoever we will! A king cannot so dispose of his kingdom.”

“No, certainly not.”

“And then again, my fair one, we have more authority over our people than a sovereign has over his subjects. We can hire, sell, or bequeath any man, woman or child among them to whomsoever we please. A sovereign cannot so dispose of his subjects.”

“Assuredly not; but this superior power we possess over ours, should only make us more mindful of our people’s welfare and happiness.—So my dear uncle taught me.”

“He was right,” said the wily Julius, “and that was the reason why I took Madeleine and Frivole to New York, where they will be so much better off.”

“Oh yes, you are so good,” replied the innocent creature. And then she fell into a deep reverie, and wondered why it was that _she_ so often felt that Mr. Luxmore was _not_ so good as he seemed. And this fine insight she blamed as an injustice; its suppression she regarded as insincerity; its confession she seemed to consider almost a duty. Yet the unwillingness to give pain restrained her communication; she resolved silently to combat what she considered an uncharitable feeling. And thus her natural instincts, which might have saved her, were conquered as sins. After this little struggle with herself, she spoke again.

“To return to our first subject, Mr. Luxmore, why may not I who am so nearly a princess, have the privilege of one, why may I not marry now, and go to the beautiful world beyond?”

“Is there in the civilized world, another young girl so unsophisticated as this sweet maiden?” said Julius Luxmore to himself, as he met her pure clear blue eyes raised in innocent inquiry to his face; he answered.

“Because, my sweet, not being really a princess, not having a royal father to give you away, your marriage would not be legal.”

The conversation here closed for the time.

Julius Luxmore had formed the determination to spend the winter in Paris. The beautiful Island was in summer a delightful residence; but in winter, its ice-bound shore was to this roving Sybarite the walls of a prison, while distant Paris seemed to him a paradise of freedom and pleasure.

But in order to leave Etoile with safety to his own interests, there were many previous arrangements to be made. It was now, as I have said, early in November. He wished to sail for Paris about the first of December. The time was short, and it was necessary to bestir himself.

First of all, with a portion of the ready money left in his trust for the heiress, he purchased a small wild farm, some twenty miles inland from the Northumberland shore. Then he drafted from the Island slaves every young and middle-aged man, and several women, and sent them off to “Black Thorns Farm,” his new purchase, where he placed them under the care of a competent overseer.

Thus there were left on the Island, only aged men and women and children.

For the service of the young heiress, he had selected an honest, affectionate old negro woman called Moll, a hunchbacked old man, misnamed Timon, and their granddaughter Peggy. These were directed to take up their abode in the mansion house, to supply the place of Madeleine and Frivole and to protect and wait upon Etoile.