And Philip Helmstedt, instead of accompanying the Comptons and Houstons to Richmond, or starting upon a bridal tour, took his idolized wife to himself alone, and conveyed her to his bleak and lonely sea-girt home, where the wild waters lashed the shores both day and night, and the roar of the waves was ever heard. CHAPTER V. THE EXCESS OF GLORY OBSCURED. “Muse, Grace, and Woman--in herself All moods of mind contrasting-- The tenderest wail of human woe, The scorn like lightning blasting; Mirth sparkling like a diamond shower From lips of lifelong sadness, Clear picturings of majestic thought Upon a ground of madness; And over all romance and song A magic lustre throwing, And laureled Celie at her side Her storied pages showing.” --VARIED FROM WHITTIER. How the wind raves, this bitter night, around that bleak, sea-girt, snow-covered island! how the waters roar as they break upon the beach! Not a star is out. Above, black, scudding clouds sail, like ships, across the dark ocean of ether--below, ships fly, like clouds, before the wind, across the troubled waters; thus sky and ocean seem to mingle in the fierce chaos of night and storm. But that massive old stone mansion fronting the sea, and looking so like a fortification on the island, recks little of the storm that howls around it--a square, black block against the sky--a denser, more defined shadow in the midst of shadows, it looks, scarcely relieved by the tall, stately, Lombardy poplars that wave before the blast around it--a steady light, from a lower window the center of the front, streams in a line far out across garden, field, and beach, to the sea. Ay! little recks the strong house, built to brave just such weather, and little recks the beautiful woman, safely sheltered in the warmest, most luxurious room, of the wild wind and waves that rage so near its thick walls.