became conscious of a change-she scarcely knew what; one of those subtle, undefined impressions, which we have all felt at some period of our lives, came over her, as she held a letter, that the words belied the spirit; something that sent a deadly, sickening chill through her heart, congealing her blood for an instant, like a sharp northern blast. A moment after, she thrust it aside, as an idle fancy. But as the weeks rolled away she had more tangible evidence of the beginning of an es trangement that was to be eternal, by the Annie's character is as opposite as the antipodes, to this, and before I get through my story, you will no doubt be wondering how she came to take a fancy to such a good-for-nothing fellow. But before you criticise, just look about and see if you cannot find its counterpart among your acquaintances. Whether some good-natured scape-grace has not already worked himself into affections your right in the face and eyes of your judgment to the exclusion of some more worthy, but plain man, who covers up his love, and hugs it tightly to his heart, as though he was fear-lengthening intervals between each sucful it might slip away to you, and plead for him. Inexperience led Annie to overlook this weakness in young Grey's character, in his boyhood, but as years matured her judgment, evidences of his instability became gradually apparent to her, and made her tremble for his future. But she trusted to the natural goodness of his heart, for hitherto, whenever his impulses led him astray, he had always shown himself sincerely penitent, and as for foreboding, "sufficient unto the day". Nevertheless, when he came to her one day and announced his intention of seeking his fortune in a neighboring city, she opposed it with a vehemence that surprised him. 66 ceeding letter, and the absence of those little confidences that had hitherto marked their pages. To confirm these impressions, vague and indefinite rumors, which she could trace to no responsible source, reached her, that he was proving false to his plighted faith. But these she indig nantly rejected. He might drink, yes, or gamble, it was in these she had doubted his strength and firmness; but to cast aside her love, and basely desert her for another, no, never; it could not be, she would not believe it! She was indignant that any one should suggest it; yet what ever the cause might be, she was haunted by apprehensions which she was too proud to utter. "Why, little Nan,' a dressing her by a favorite pet name, what is there for a Ere long the denouement came, and it a fellow to d in this dull old place? would was with the stunning sensation of a vioyou have me waste my life and talents lent thunder-clap. She opened a letter here, when they might be of use to me that was brought her one day, and read, somewhere else?" said he, more serious-in language that made a faint attempt to ly. "Why," he continued, relapsing into his usual light, careless manner, "I should wear away to a shadow from sheer inanition, and some fine morning the good people of would wake up and find Hod Grey among the missing. Yielding at length to what she felt was but the natural desire of ambitious manbood, she ceased to urge objections, but it was with a sinking heart she bid him God speed. He went, and for several months letters came regularly and frequent, filled with cheering accounts of his success, interlocuted with minute details of his daily habits, and repeated assurances of his continued love for his dear little Nan," until the painful prophecy of her heart was lulled into security. But by-and-bye she " be kind, but was cold and cutting as steel, that the writer wished to dissolve the engagement of marriage existing between them. Some idle and specious reason he gave, about the youth and inexperience of the parties when the compact was made, false and vapid as the love he was giving to another, which would come back some day in mocking accents to his desolate heart. She read the document slowly through to the end, then it dropped to her lap; a momentary pause, and she took it up again. Possibly there might be some mistake; but, no - there was the signature, written in his own free, graceful hand, legible and distinct, as though there were no cruel sundering of long cemented ties, wound up in its fair, round charac ters. She held the paper tightly compressed between her fingers, for a space that might seem ages, if measured by the misery that marked its passage. She looked, but saw not, so far as any evidence the outward senses gave. Her vision was in reality introverted at this moment, travelling over the past, stopping by the wayside, balting longest at certain happy trysting places, that stood out in the foreground of her memory; watching them lingeringly as they fell into perspective, until she trode upon the boundaries of her earliest recollection; then, slowly, step by step, she retraced the same path, as though each spot and each circumstance held her chained, until she reached the last scene limned upon her destiny. Then she strained her eyes far out into the uncertain depths of the future, through the shadowy pall that enveloped it, for a glimpse of that happier life that a few short months ago she had fondly imagined spread smilingly out before her. But the outlook was a drear, desolate waste; stern, gloomy and uninviting. How many others have been momentarily stopped on the highway of life, as some sad and bitter experience, extinguished for a time the light of hope, and hid the pathway in shadows and gloom! But ere long the sun shines out once more, the shadows disperse, and we take up perchance, an additional burden and travel on. How long the girl might have sat in this half abnormal state, there's no telling, if she had not been aroused by the sudden opening and closing of a door in a distant portion of the house. This brought her to a sense of what she still had to do, and she rose, went to her desk, took out her writing materials, and wrote a brief, concise note, releasing him without a remonstrance, or word of comment. Then she folded and sealed it with careful precision, placed it in a plain, neat envelope and laid it on the desk before her. How calm she is, how methodical she has suddenly grown! Now watch her as she writes the address; the hand is steady, there is no trembling, no wavering. Would you be lieve she was signing the death-warrant of her own happiness? But think you there is less pain, because of an outward semblance of calmness? This seeming show more often hides a spirit burning and smouldering in its prison-house, like the fires of a volcano; struggling to free itself, to become indifferent to the weight that is bearing it down. No, mark me, wherever you see this calm, placid surface in those who have cause to suffer, make sure the fires are burning the fiercer within, slowly, steadily consuming the heartlife, and it will tell ere long, in the deep seams that are grooved upon the clear, white forehead, and the crow's feet about the eyes. And if you chance to meet this woman, or that man afterwards, you find yourself saying, "That person has a history!" for the experience has left its record on the outer man, as speaking and indellible as the footprints of time. Annie took the letter to the post-office herself, that there should be no mistakeno delay. Her quick, nervous step as she sped along the road she had so often trodden under happier auspices, alone betrayed her mental agitation. When she entered the house again, she tossed aside her bonnet and shawl, with the same ener getic action, as though everything she did required a strong will to bring it forth. Settling heavily down into a chair, her head sank upon the table at her side, and she involuntarily closed her eyes, with a mental wish that she could as easily shut out all memory of the past. Shortly after this, news came of the marriage of her lover. But she heard it indifferently now. The shaft had sped straight and unerring to her heart, when the cruel letter came, and nothing that might occur hereafter, could make her any more miserable. When Horace Grey started out to seck his fortune, he had gone forth full of the hope and confidence of youth, firm in the belief that a few years of industrious application would secure him a competency. And as he bade farewell to Annie, his breast heaved with the honest impulses of manly ambition. Had he been less gifted with exterior graces, he would no doubt, have adhered to his laudable intention, but unfortunately these proved the "open sesame" to a society that too often works the ruin of young men and women in cit and ies. His natural bon hommie made him I have often observed that the young eagerly sought after, and ere long, he was are very apt to infer that if they do not sethe leading spirit at parties of pleasure, cure the first wish of their hearts, the balls, concerts, et-cetera. These exhaust-world is henceforth bleak and desolate; if ed his funds and his energies, so that at they do not reach the first object of their the end of the first year, he found himself ambition, there's no use trying again. as poor as when he set out. During this But a few years experience teaches them time, a love for excitement and gaiety that this is false logic, and that tears and was growing upon him. He found it dif- repinings are a poor instrument. The efficult to give up his cigars and fast horses, forts of an infant when it first essays to or a drive and choice dinner at a fashiona- walk, offers a simple illustration and exble hotel out of town. Yet he did not ample of what our own should be. If the give himself altogether up without a strug- child tumbles down, it picks itself up, gle with his bette: self. At these times, goes bravely forward again. There may he was gloomy and depressed, and would be tears, sore heads, and grazed shins, but resolve to work for dear little Nan," nothing daunted, it tries again. who was waiting so patiently for him in her quiet country home. But it was so long to labor and wait, that he turned from the contemplation in a sort of melancholy despair. Vacillating thus between his growing loves, and the better instincts of his nature, his heart became gradually indurated, the old-time memories slowly receded into the past, and lost their power to control him. Step by step he went on, until he became that questionable character in society, a "fortune hunter," and married for money. But there came a day of retribution at last a day when this ephemeral and fictitious mode of existence wearied him, then, in the barrenness and insufficiency of his lone life, he paid the price of his broken faith. He had learned when too late, that the divine instincts of human nature cannot be trampled on with impunity. Yet alas, how many men and women there are, who do not hesitate to sell their birthright for a "mess of pottage.' Despite the heaviness that rested upon Annie's spirits at this period, she bore up bravely, exhibiting the strength and resolution of her will, by a faithful and thorough discharge of all her social and domes tic duties. Yet there were many days and weeks before she came out of the dark cloud, into the bright sunshine, when she thought it would be, O, so sweet to die, and be at rest, where there would be no more heart-aches, and no more sorrow. But we cannot weep always, and the intensest grief must yield to the recuperating effects of time. In the first days of her trouble Annie felt as most persons are apt to under like circumstanses, an utter indifference to life. People might live, die and be married, it was all the same to her. She would never allow herself to be deluded by false hopes again. Life was a humbug, got up on a grand scale; a failure, from beginning to end. But the girl was too full of soul after all, to hold herself aloof from human interests, with the great, big heart of humanity beating all around her. She had too much pride and will, to confess herself beaten, floored at the very outset of life. But, 0, it was so hard to silence the painful pleadings of her heart; to feel that her bitter dream of love was a floating bubble that had melted into vapor. Was she selfish? She believed she was, when there was so much in the world to do; but, must she give up the dearest hopes of her life at the cruel mandate of destiny, and accept in their place, the cold consolation of doing, possibly, an uncongenial dnty? Still go on, and on, to the end, with that dull, heavy pain resting on her heart? She supposed she must; other women had done it before her, why not she? O! for a Lethean draught to still the unquiet soul, and blot out the memory of the past! And she gazed desponding ly into the bright, crackling fire at her feet. But it might as well have been dead ashes for all the warmth and cheerfulness it brought to her heart. Fortunately, the young girl's life was one of unremitting labor, and unhappy meditations must give way to pressing needs of the body. Some writer has said that "not only the greatness of life but its enjoyment, consists in action ACTION." This is no doubt true, and that many afflicted souls find in it the panacea and preserver of mental and bodily health. Is it not then a beautiful instance of God's providence, that this outlet is provided for the constantly accumulating pressure of the mind? To Annie, it came like the support of a valued friend, in her soul's great need, and she seized it as eagerly as a famishing man clutches at a tempting morsel. Through its aid, her mind began gradually to assume a more healthful and cheerful tone. But with it came a maturity that made her sensible of having grown many years older, in feeling. It somehow opened a different life. Hitberto she had gazed at it through a prism, which had thrown over it the loveliness and brilliancy of its many colored hues. Seen now, with the naked eye of experience, it stood out plain, rugged and intensely practical. Bah! it sickened her. The most repulsive picture is, however, robbed of its ugliness, by constant familiarity. Possibly we may detect hidden beauties in time. We trust this may be Annie's experience, with the new world that has opened to her. At the present, however, pride, which acts as a powerful mainspring in the unseen mechanism of every woman's character, did much toward restoring the equillibrium of Annie's mind. Horace Grey's marriage had of course, been duly heralded, and gossip was not idle. Mrs. Grundy and her cronies pat their heads together and speculated, but the young girl's calm and passionless exterior baffled their curiosity, But in the solitude of her own room, the strong, selfwilled girl had many a sharp struggle before she could reconcile herself to the fiat of that -"Divinity that shapes our ends, Rough hue them as we will.' After these midnight conflicts she always rose pale and weary, but an hour or two in the fresh morning air, added to the necessity for action, brought the color to her cheek again, and she became once more the calm, unreadable girl of yesterday. At this time, Annie turned instinctively, as it were, to the aged minister who had been her friend from infancy. There was a magnetism about the honest old man's nature, that soothed and calmed her. She felt the God-spirit in his heart flow out to her through his simple, homely talk, and embrace her within its Divine effluences, lulling the painful throbbings of the spirit, and infusing through her whole being, a peaceful and heavenly quietude, as delightful as the most delicate and subtle aroma. No word was spoken between them of her unhappiness, but by a subtle sympathy that makes us cogniz ant of another's condition, he felt it. By this invisible, mysterious and incomprehensible agent, these two, the maiden of twenty, and the gray-haired septugenari an were brought into close affinity. Taught by this, the exact state of her mind, it enabled him to approach her through those sources that would render the teachings of the good Word, the most efficacious. As the reward of his patient labor, he saw the godly seed slowly but surely working its silent mission. He beheld the quiet, undemonstrative girl growing into the lovely and admirable woman; the rough edges of her nature were being chiselled into fairer proportions, and a gentler light beamed in her dark eye. It was a bitter draught she had quaffed, but it contained within itself the elements of its own antidote. Sorrow is ever a wholesome tonic. Out of the stern lessons life was teaching her, was to evolve a great truth, that would stand out pure and clear as crystal, amid the puzzling perplexities of this great problem of existence. And this was, that the sweetest and truest enjoyment of life, comes from the performance of duty, and the ab negation of our selfish loves. But it generally requires a good deal of the rough and tumble of life, with frequent disappointments of our dearest hopes, before we can so far sink self as to make it a secondary consideration with us. Annie was no exception to the general rule. The first results of thus suddenly too fastidious, and it were not well to be so." "She must not expect perfection," said well-intentioned friends. All very good, stereotyped advice, which had been reiterated to every unmarried woman since the days of grandmother Eve, all of which she set to the credit of charitable intention, and she went smiling. How often have I seen a woman, likely on her way. Her heart was buried this one, give into the keeping of some with the last ideal, and could never more man, the most delicate and priceless offer- be resurrected. Still, though fate had ing of her womanly nature, who retained shut her out from those tender relations it for a while, and then tossed it back to around which the hopes of all women more her, bleeding and lacerated, as lightly and or less centre, she did not misanthropically carelessly as a child would cast aside a close her heart to all other human interplaything it had become wearied with. ests. Her life labors had not ceased; And this man, perhaps afterwards marries they were only diverted to another chana woman who does not feel for him a tithe nel. There was room left for a universal of the deep affection of her whose love he philanthropy. has thus heartlessly thrust from him. But this play at cross-purposes, this continued wrestling and wailing of the spirit, crying out for what it cannot reach, is perhaps necessary to bring the mind to that stand-point where it can look down as it were, and calmly survey its own inner self. When it can calmly and dispassionately analyze its own condition, the day of regeneration is not afar off. "Time waits for no man," but keeps steadily on its course as though life was all one bright May morning. With its inevitable passage, Annie's little dream of love was being-must I say it stripped of its romance. The true character of her lover was gradually unfolding to her, and with it came a glimmering of the unsatisfied life that would have been hers, as the wife of a man swayed hither and thither by the promptings of an unsteady, undisciplined nature. And as she came to see and acknowledge the wisdom of that omniscient God who had guided all things for her temporal and eternal good, the disappointment came to be regarded only as a sad, unpleasant episode. This feeling, too, passed away, as years came between her and its remembrance, and the maiden, a girl no longer, but a woman now, by virtue of her intensified but more rational life, became at last content: content in doing well, that which was given her to 10. She is growing old now, and her beautiful dark hair is sprinkled with grey, but she contemplates the prospect of her fading beauty calmly, and though life has not brought her all she expected, in the heyday of youth and hope, and sometimes seemed to go wrong altogether, yet its experiences and trouble had not been without their compensating reward, for they had brought her an inward peace that is beyond all price, and there is no shadow or trace upon her pleasant, sensible countenance, of the desolating whirlwind that shipwrecked her hopes long years ago. Some of my young lady readers may possibly feel a trifling disappointment at the closing up of my story, and think, after all the heartaches and trials of my heroine, that some noble-minded man should have fallen in love with her, and made her heart happy. But it is the province of the story teller to give truthful delineations of life. and it was not my fault that the heroine should have been in this instance, one of that despised and neglected class of women called old maids. But there are so many whose love episodes terminate more happily, that some day when I am in the mood for story-telling, I will give you one teeming with bridal favors, and fragrant with orange blossoms. Chicago, Ill. |