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KITTY ATHERTON’S DOUBLE TROTH.

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; BY MARGARET BLOUNT.

“Avtton or “Tam Pripe of toe Downs,” “A Dananrous WoNees, n Ero,

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NEW YORK:
BRADLE AND ADAMS, PUBLISHERS,
98 WILLIAM STREET.

 
 

 
 

 

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WINNING WAYS;

OR,

KITTY ATHERTON’S DOUBLE TROTH.

 

CHAPTER I.

“€ Methinks there is vo lovelier sight on earth
Than gentle woman in her earlier years ;
Before one cloud hath gathered o’er her mirth,
Ere her bright eye grows dim with secret tears ;
When life the semblance of a dream doth wear,
And earth is basking in a joyous smile ;
When rich delight breathes in the golden air,
And boundless fancies may the heart beguile.”
—WILLIS GAYLORD CLARK,

_I think I see some gay and beantiful young
irl glancing at the title of this book. “A
roken Life”, she says, with a wondering smile.
. Now, what can that be? Broken china, broken
tings, broken fans, and broken hearts, every one
has heard ofthem! Buta‘ Broken Life”! “That
4s either something very new, or else the print-
er has read the ‘copy’ wrongly, and made a
terrible blunder on the very first page of his

. Work,”

No, dear child! Tis no mistake of the print-
€r’s ; tis nothing new! Broken lives are far
More common things than broken hearts ; they
May be seen in every direction, if you will but
‘turn those blue eyes of yours upon the world
You live in. ‘They are simply arrows that have
Missed their mark—streams that have failed at
the fountain-head—fair and smiling gardens
that have fallen into barrenness and decay—
through whose fault, who can tell? They are
lives which ought not to have been lived in
Vain—lives which ought not to have been full
of beauty, of goodness, of holiness—lives which
Sught ‘to have made and have left other lives
better and happier by their example ; and yet
what awaste they are! And look et those who
live them! See how gay, how frank, how win-
‘ting most of them appear—see how gifted, how
‘beautiful, how graceful they are—how lightly

‘time, and care, and trouble seem to touch them ;

and yet, to them, how blank, how dreary, how
burposeless, everything but death must be! I
do not ask the reason of these things. I onl
know that they are so. And of one such life

lif JM arr i cae

am about to write the story. You shall look
upon it in its first glad spring—you shall watch
it in its glowing summer—you shall gaze tender-
ly on its sad autumnal beauty, and sigh whea
its hollow winter winds begin to blow. It shall
be a true story of a real person who has lived
a “broken life’; and at its close, see if you
can guess, dear reader, the riddle which so puz-
zlea me. See if you can tell, any more than I
ean, why a heart so fond and warm should turn
to marble—why hopes so pure should fade and
die—why @ nature so innocent should be for-
ever spoiled—why a spirit so eager and buoyant
should be content to fold its pinions and grovel
on the earth till the end of earthly things.
Recognize thoroughly that aimless, purposeless _
existence ; read its innermost page of failure, of
doubt, of self-reproach, and self-distrust. See
all the struggle, and all the pain—the conscious-
ness of defeat, and the hopelessness of triumjh
—the feeble attempt to rise, the desperate,
headlong fall, and tell me, if you can, what it
means! Ah, believe me, those who are so un-
fortunate as to make life a failure, are not to be
harshly judged! We, who are happy, success-
ful, and beloved, ean afford to be merciful to
them. And when the end comes, and the feet
that have so stumbled over the world’s rough
_ are still, and the heart that has so suffered
eels nv more pain, and the eyes that have _
looked so wearily through their tears for light
and help are closed, may it not be possible that
then some ‘“ oe of refuge” will be opened tu
the poor bewildered soul, and the great secret
of such utter failures be revealed, as the chast-
ening discipline that led it gently there? 1
hope so; from my inmost heart, I hope so!

* * * * * *

An author sat one day in his London lodg-
ings, weary with the din and bustle that reigned
in the street below; sick and tired of the “ mak-
ing of books”, of which, in his ease, at least,
there certainly seemed to be “no end”; long-

 
 

   
 

0

ing only, like the Psalmist of old, for ‘ wings
like a dove”, that he might “flee away and be at
rest”, far from the petty cares and vexations
that seem to cluster most thickly around a city
home. In this mood he opened a guide-book
that lay upon his writing-table, and turning
over the leaves at random, chanced upon this
passage ; an extract from that prose-poet of all
country scenery, whose very name (in conjune-
tion with that of his gifted wife) is like a famil-
jar strain of music to the ear—‘ William How-
itt”.

“ On one side are open knolls and ascending
woodlands, covered with majestic beeches, and
the village children playing under them; on
the other, the most rustic cottages, almost bur-
jed in the midst of their orchard trees, and
thatched as Hampshire cottages only are, in
such projecting abundance, such flowing lines.
. . . . The bee-hives, in their rustic rows,
the little crofts, all belong to a primitive coun-
try. . . . . As I advanced, heathery hills
stretched away on one hand, woods cume down
closely and thickly on the other, and a winding
road beneath the shade of large old trees, eon-

- dueted me to one of the most retired and peace-

ful hamlets. It was Minstead. Herds
of red deer rose from the fern, and went bound-
ing away, and dashed in the depths of the
woods; troops of those gray and long tailed
forest horses turned to gaze as I passed down
the open glades, and the red squirrels in hun-
dreds seampered away from the ground where
they were feeding. Delighted with the
true woodland wildness and solemnity of beau-
ty, I roved onward through the wildest woods
that came in my way. Awaking as from a
dream, I saw far around me one deep shadow,
one thick and continuous roof of boughs, and
thousands of hoary boles, standing clothed, as
it were, with the very spirit of silence ”

The author closed the book, and Minstead,
with its beech-trees, and green knolls, and red
deer and squirrels, and gray forest ponies,
rose up hefore his mental eye like a “city of
refuge’ in a barren and weary land. At
thought of it, the petty vexing troubles that
had oppressed him, vanished into thin air, and
starting up that instant, lest, at the sight of un-
finished ‘‘copy” and uncorree'ed “ proofs”, his
courage should fail him, he went into his bed-
room and began to pack his trunk. The next
morning, about an hour before that emissary of
evil to an author, the “ printer’s devil”, could
reasonably be expected at his town lodgings,
he was safe in the mail-train for Southampton,
rushing away at full speed from him, and from
all the tasks and annoyanees that follow in his
wake. He left the train at one of the small
Forest stations, and securing an open earriage
und a good-tempered-looking driver, set off in
high spirits for Minstead. He had heard of a
smal! inn there, whose quaint name, the “ Trus-

THE REJECTED WIFE; OR,

ty Servant”, seemed to him to harmonize well
with the surroundings described by Howitt;
and when, at last, he caught sight of the veri-
table green knolls and beechen-trees (minus the
red deer and long-tailed ponies), he pleased
himself with a picture of a happy week spent
beneath the thatched roof of the hostel— a
week of close communion with Nature, in one
of her loveliest haunts, among her simplest and
most unsophisticated creatures.

But it generally happens that, if people set
their hearts upon going to any particular place
in the world, and make all their arrangements
with a special reference to that place, some ma-
licious sprite interferes suddenly and unexpec-
tedly, and they find themselves located it quite
a different direction. This first day in the New
Forest was no exception to the ordinary rule.
The “ Trusty Servant”, humble, and out-of-the-
way place as it seemed, was full, and the large
inn at Stoney Cross was in the same predica-
ment. Night was fast closing in—the driver
looked eross, the horse seemed tired—a fine
rain began to fall, and the shivering author re-
pented sorely of his hasty trip into a- strange
territory.

“T might at least have written beforehand to
secure lodgings,” he grumbled to himself, as
cr plodded along a dark and dreary forest
road,

Suddenly a warm light shone out before
them; the driver brightened up visibly, and
turned toward him with a broad grin.

“The ‘Bell Inn’, Brook, sir!” he said,
touching his hat. “I thought it were a mile
further on ;” and he drew up with a great flour-
ish before the door of an old-fashioned inn,
standing back from the road, with a large gar-
den at one side, and some very comfortable-
looking stables on the other.

A stout, pleasant-faced landlady made her
appearance in the passage, the hostler ran round
from the stable, and in an ineredilly short time
horse and driver were resting comfortably from
their journey, while the author sat by a cheer-
ful fire in the best parlor, eating his toast,
drinking his tea, and reading a London paper,
some six weeks old, with much apparent zest.

The place pleased him. It was quiet, neat,
and clean, and he determined to make it his

head-quarters during his explorations in the —

Forest. The arrangement was completed before
he retired to rest. The next morning he slept
late, breakfasted at one (much to the surprise
of the round faced country girl who waittd on
him), and after spending an hour or two over
a book, set out for a long country walk.

It was a mild November afternoon. A gray
and cloudy sky hung low above the trees that

creaked and groaned with every sudden gust of —

wind; a heavy mist (changing now and then to
angry gusts of rain) was in the air; the ground
was wet and sodden, and the smoke from the

 

me Oe oe EP me

a

 

 

 
 

A BROKEN LIFE. a

village chimneys floated suddenly toward the
earth. It had been raining all the morning—it
would probably rain all the night ; and the raw
blasts that swept from the east, grew more
piercing still as the evening closed in. Few
would have cared to be out, either for business
or pleasure, at such a time.

Yet the author strolled through the deserted
streets of Brook, in spite of the wind, the rain,
and the gloomy overhanging sky. He did not
seem to fear the storm; he did not face it, but
lounged along with his hands in the pockets of
his greateoat, as if he had been strolling through
Kensington Gardens on a fine summer's day.
Tn fact, he was scarcely thinking of the weather
at that moment. His mind was intent upon the
perfect stillness that reigned around him; his
Spirit, so long vexed and annoyed with a thou-
sand petty troubles brought by each succeeding
day, rested gratefully even upon that scene of
storm and gloom. He felt old, worn out, and
inex ressibly weary, it is true—no sense of re-
turning youth, and hope, and joy, came to him
upon the wings ef that sweeping breeze, but
the rain-drops touched his forehead with a cold
Kiss of peace, and the sullen clouds and the

ailing wind seemed to express the thought
which he had in his ‘mind all the while.

“ The end of all things has come for me, and

am content. But surely it would be very
Sweet if one could die peacefully and be buried
In this little hamlet. I could rest in my grave,
I think, if they made it at Minstead !”

As he said the words half aloud, the road
took a sudden turn to the left. He turned with
it, and came unexpectedly upon a little living
Picture that made him pause.

Every one knows the truth of the old saying,
“the world is full of paper walls’ —walls which,
by the merest chance, are for ever and fatally
Separating those who long to meet—walls which
are as impregnable as if they were built of the
hardest adamant. But it sometimes seems to
Me that the world is also full of unseen influences,
Spiritual magnets, which are for ever, and per-

aps as fatally, drawing those toward each
other who are far better apart, and yet must
Meet, because they are fated to do so. Strangely
enough do those influences work upon and
change our whole lives. Open a door, and you
May bring your fate in upon you; cross a
Street, and it may meet you face to face. The

riend you are to cherish, the enemy you are to
hate, the man or woman you are to love—some-
Where in the wide world they are waiting, and
You need not seek them out, for they will surely
fome to you. They may be dwelling in the
far East, you in the distant West—they may be
ound to others by the tenderest ties—so may
ceed yet, so surely as you both live and
reathe, just so surely will they cross your
ath one day, and make their mark upon your
ife. For my part, so firmly am I convinced of

the truth of this theory, that I cannot enter a
strange place now without the mental question
“What—who will bring it to me?” never
can look upon a new acquaintance without
wondering inwardly, “ Are the threads of our
two lives entwined in any hidden and mys-
terious way, of which we know nothing as yet ?”
I do not know that these speculations do any
harm ; they certainly create in the mind a soré
of awe of places, times, and people, which is,
perhaps, the most reverent way of looking upon
them, and upon life!

In turning the corner of this woodland road,
the man of the world had turned a corner in his
own life, and he knew it not. Before him, at a

‘little distance, stood the village church upon a

gentle eminence ; one or two cottages nestled
among the surrounding hills, and the whole
scene wore that look of green and peaceful
repose which is so peculiar a characteristic of
all English re

At his right, another cottage stood modestly
by the side of the road. A grove of beech-
trees rose behind it ; in front was a small garden
stocked with old fashioned flowers, and sur-
rounded by a paling half-hidden by the sprays
and blossoms of a climbing rose. The little
rustic gate was cavitousedlt by a wooden arch,
over which woodbine and ivy had been trained
by some skillful hand. They garlanded it with
a fresh green wreath even yet. The cottage
was one of those quaint, old-fashioned thatched
and latticed houses you can still see in the New
Forest—if in no other part of England—one
of those ideal cottages which seem the fit
abiding place of James's and Tennyson’s “May
Queens”. At this moment its door stood hos-
pitably open, and in the picturesque little porch
a jolly-looking old farmer was talking to two
women almost as stout and jolly-looking as
himself At the gate stood a young and
handsome man of twenty-five, wearing a farm-
er’s dress, and holding the hand of a girl of
seventeen, who looked up in his face with a gay,
frank smile. A garden hat hung on her arm.
A maT of autumnal flowers was in her dis-
engaged hand, and the studied neatness of her
simple gray dress and pink ribbons showed
that the day was a festive one—at least, in her
young eyes. :

Pretty eyes she had, too, soft, dark, and
bright ; a pretty, blooming face, luxuriant hair,
a graceful form, an easy carriage ; attractions
sufficient to stamp her at once as the village
belle. And something else was in that face,
too, which caught the author’s eye and made
him fall into a deep reverie as he stood and
watched her. .

He understood it all that instant, as well as
if the story had been told to him by the par-
ties whom it most concerned. There were the
father and the aunts, here were the lovers, so
happy that they knew nothing of the lowering —

 
  

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sky above their heads, or the sudden gust of
rain which was even then sweeping up from
tie west toward them. He stood apart and
gazed at them with a smile; but something in
their youth, their happiness, their artless con-
fidence in each other, and in life, made him
sigh at the same moment.

The voice of the old farmer galled the young
pair from their pleasant dream.

“Kitty! William! Don’t you see it is go-
ing to rain? You will not have time for your
walk before tea. In with you before you get a
wetting.”

Kitty's face was turned toward the road ;
therefore, as she turned to obey her father’s
summons, she was ‘made ’ware” of a tall and
elegant stranger, looking very handsome and
very sad, who stood just beyond the gate, with
his dark eyes fixed upon her as intently as if
she had been the fairest vision that ever cross-
ed a poet's path. Kitty started as she caught
that earnest gaze—returned it for a moment
with a sort of breathless awe—then blushed,
and trembled, and turned away with a guilty,
frightened feeling at her heart, which she had
never known before.

“The gentleman seems tired, and we are go-
ing to have a heavy shower,” said the farmer,
coming down the path toward them ; “ perhaps
he will walk in and take shelter with us till it
is over.”

The last words were addressed half to Wil-
liam, and half to the author, who, on hearin
them, advanced on the instant, and raised his
hat.

“You are very kind,” he said, in a voice
whose tone struck upon Kitty’s sensitive ear
like some familiar but half-forgotten melody ;
“and I accept your hospitality as cordially as
it is offered—that is, if 1am not intruding upon
the privacy of a family party.”

The old man chuckled, and nodded his head
signficantly at William.

“No, not a bit on’t!” he said, cheerfully.
“Tl tell you more about that after tea. But
now let us goin. Here come the first drops of
the shower.”

He burried up the little graveled path, fol-
lowed by William, who had grown suddenly
silent and shamefaced in the presence of the
unexpected guest. Kitty was silent, too, and
never looked his way, although he was walking
close beside her. At the porch the flowers she
was carrying fell to the ground. The stranger
at them up and gave them to her with a
ow bow; but not before he had secreted one
in the palm of his hand. She saw him do it,
and went into the little cottage parlor blush-

- ing more deeply than before.

=

THE REJECTED WIFE; OR,

CHAPTER II.
“O Eva, thou the pure in heart,
Why tulls thy trembling voice ?
A blush is on thy maiden cheek,
And yet thine eyes rejoice.
Thine eyelids droop in tenderness,
New smiles thy lips combine,
For thou dost feel another soul
Is blending into thine.”
—FE.izaBeTs Oakes Smrru.
The fire burned bright upon the cottage
hearth, and danced and s sarkled over again in
the store of cups and dishes that filled the
dresser opposite. A row of chairs were drawn
up ina cosy semicircle before the hearth, the old
farmer installed his guest in the place of honor
—the chimney-corner, and sat down by his side.
William dropped into a seat near the window,
and Kitty and her two female guests bustled
about the room, “ on hospitable cares intent”.
From his nook the stranger watched it all,
while he talked with the old man about the tra-
ditions of the Forest, and the wonders of “ Lon-
don town”. He marked the exquisite neatness:
of the place, the fresh colors of the pretty ear-
pet that covered the floor, the dazzling bright-
ness of the window-panes, the spotless purity of
the cloth the cottage girl was laying. The
steel fender almost made his eyes ache with
brightness, and look as he might, at the mantel-
piece, table, chairs, and shelves, not a particle
of dust or dirt could be found on them to
offend his fastidious eye. A vase of late-bloom-
ing flowers stood on the broad window-shelf.
On a little table beneath, lay a Bible and a
prayer-book bound in red morocco, a set of
“Hervey’s Meditations”, and one or two vol-
umes of “Sturm’s Reflections”. The soberly-
painted shelves opposite the fireplace held
nothing but the modest dishes of delf and
earthenware necessary for the farmer’s table,
but just beyond them, a small book-case a
by its crimson cords, and evidently containe
Ritty's literary treasures. At that distance he
could not decipher the titles of the books, but
he promised himself a closer scrutiny after tea.
Over the bovk-shelves hung a print of a young
girl holding a spaniel in her arms. Upon the
wall behind him were two engravings framed in
black, and dark with age, representing that dis-
mal “ Leaving of the Tuileries”, and that still
more dismal leave-taking of a king of France
with Marie Antoinette, and her unfortunate
children. They were finely drawn and en-
graved, but it was a relief tc look from the ag-
onized group to the fresh young face of Kitty,
who was cutting bread and butter just beneath
them.
How lovely that face was, now that he could
look more closely at it. Dark, silky hair
ushed back carelessly yet smoothly from the
Rsaent cheek ; eyes that were deep as well
as dark, and that were the very “homes of
tears”. A clear, brunette complexion, with a
wild rose tint upon the cheeks, and a deeper

 

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A BROKEN LIFE. 9

rimson on the lips that seemed always ready

to break into a smile; a slight aquiline nose, a
rounded, dimpled chin, a well-shaped head, that
Was sei proudly on a white and slender throat ;
a rounded yet delicate form ; small hands, feet,
and ears—gaze as he might, he could find no
fault with little Kitty. More beautiful women
he had of course seen—more graceful ones, it
may be—but never had so fresh, so natural, and
80 unaffected a creature crossed his path be-
fore. She was as blooming as a sweet wild
rose, she was good, and simple, and artless ; she
Movea about her cottage-home with shy, in-
Stinetive grace, a little embarrassed by the
Stranger’s presence, a little troubled by the new
feelinus to which she could give no name, yet
busying herself all the while with arrangements
for his comfort, in such a charming way, that
he eould not keep his eyes from her. The
Words of the ambitious judge in ‘‘ Maud Mul-
er’, that beautiful American poem of John G.
Wiiittier’s, came into his mind as he watched
er 3
*« A form more fair, a face more sweet,
Ne’er hath it been my lot to meet.

** And her modest answer and graceful air
Show her wise and good as she is fair,

“ Would she were mine, and I, to-day,
Like her, a harvester of hay.

“* No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs,
Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues.

“ But low of cattle, and song of birds,
And health, and quiet, and loving words,”

“Tea is ready, please,” said the sweet voice
of his ‘Maud Muller” as he inwardly repeated
the Jast words, and he got up and took his seat
At the table by her side. If any one had told
him one week before that he would have been
Sitting sociably at that meal, in company witha
Young and beautiful girl, an old farmer, and
two stout ol women, who, however estimable
they might be, certainly did not bear the
Slightest outward resemblance to duchesses, how
he would have scouted the idea l yet, there he
sat, hekping Kitty with the cups and hot water,
as if he had been a tea-maker all bis life; eat-
ing bread and butter, and cold boiled ham, with
the most intense relish, and exerting himself
for the entertainment of the company, till old
Farmer Atherton and William Hill roared with
laughter, and Mrs. Brown, and Mrs. Jones con-
fided to each other behind their tea-cups, that
he was “tie funniest gentleman they ever did
see!’ And then when the meal was over, how
he insisted on helping them to clear away. I
think he would have washed the dishes if Mrs.
Brown would have let him! If any one had
told these laughing, good-tempered cottagers,
“This man who chooses to amuse himself for
this moment by a game at ‘high jinks’ with you
is one of the most sarcastic, reserved, and un-
ete of human beings in his own sphere
And among his equals’”—do yeu think they
Would have believed it? You know they would

not! And yet it was nothing more than the
truth.

The dishes were washed and put tidily away,
the hearth brushed, the curtains drawn, the
candles lit, and Kitty sat beside her lover in the
family cirele, while Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Jones
took their places near the stranger. The old
farmer stirred his glass of spirit, and gazed
around the group with contented eyes.

“ Quite like as if we had known each other
all our lives long—isn’t it, sir ?”

“Quite. And that reminds me that you
ought to know who you have been so very kind
to. My name is Francis Oliver. I am an
Englishman by birth, and for the present, at
least, a Londoner by residence. I came down
here for a week’s quiet, little thinking I should
meet with such pleasant friends, or such a warm
welcome.”

“©You deserve it, sir. You deserve it!” said
the old man warmly. “ ’Tisn’t many a gentle-
man born who would come into a te man’s
home and make himself so friendly as you
have done to-day. I drink your health, sir ;
and here’s hoping you may find friends and
happiness wherever you go.”

be author smiled.

“Thank you. Let me return your courtesy,
my good friend, and couple with my toast the
name of your fair daughter. Long life, a hap-

y home, and some one to love her always.”
And he bowed to Kitty, and raised his glass to
his lips.

“ Eh, Kitty, lass, do you hear that ?” said the
old man, laughing ; but at the same time wip-
ing a tear from his eye. “I see you have
guessed her little secret, sir; so she will not
mind my telling you that your wish for her is
likely to be granted. Long life we cannot be
sure of; but the happy home she will have,
and there is the man who will make it for her.”
And he laid his hand affectionately on William
Hill’s shoulder. ‘Tis their betrothal day, sir.
We have been keeping it with a little dinner,
you see.”

“I congratulate you from the bottom of my
heart,” said Mr. Oliver to the expectant bride-
groom. “ You are a lucky man ; and if ever @
man’s home was happy one, I think yours must
surely be, with so good and so pretty a wife with-
in it.”

Poor William! It was certainly a misfortune
that, at such a moment, he should have been
unable to find words for a reply—certainly
misfortune that he should hang down his head,
blush furiously, and only mutter somethin

indistinctly, to the effect that he woul

always be kind to Kitty. Kitty heard it more
plainly than any one else, but even as she lis«
tened, she glanced from him to the tall, elegant
siranger, who was 80 composed, and sv politey
and a sigh stole from her lips. There was @
short, awkward silence, broken by a loud exe

 
  

10

elamation from the farmer, which drew all eyes
upon him.

“JT wonder I never thought of it before !”

“Thought of what, father?” asked Kitty,
moving somewhat uneasily in her chair.

“Why, this gentleman’s name! And the
book you are so fond of reading.”

“Oh!” said Kitty; and her dark eyes grew
round, and her mouth opened. “Oh, it is the
same name. Did you write it, sir? Is it
yours ?”

She ran to the book-case, selected a volume
bound in green and gold, and put it into Mr.
Oliver’s hand. He smiled good-naturedly as he
glanced at it.

“ Yes, it is mine.”

“To think of that, now!” said the farmer,
proudly. ‘“Many’s the time I’ye heard the
child reading it out loud of an evening, and
here you are sitting with us, and the book in
your own hand. Drat it, how funny things do
come round in this world! don’t they, sir?” he
exclaimed. ,

“They do, certainly,” said the author, who
was still holding the‘book, and gazing absent-
mindedly into the fire.

“Tis a main pretty story, what I remember
of it,” said the farmer, lighting his pipe.
“ Have a smoke, sir?”

“Thank you, I never smoke.”

“ And the people talk there pretty much as
they would if they were alive,” continued the
old man, “which is a real blessing. ’Tisn’t
often I read a story, but when I do, I like to
have things natural—like to have a spade
called a spade, you know. Now, it seems to
me that the ladies and gentleman that write
books, mostly like to call a spade by some finer
name. No offence to them, but we plain

eople are dreadfully puzzled sometimes to
fuse what they are driving at, they do use
such nation fine words.”

“The fault of young beginners, mostly,” said
Mr. Oliver, smiling. “I used to do it my-
self, when I was a young man. But, now I
am getting old and gray, I begin to see the
truth of your remark, that a spade should be
called a spade, and not a‘ utensil for the pur-
Hee of gardening’, or something of that

ind.”

“ That's exactly what I mean, sir,” eried the
old man, delighted at finding his criticism so
well appreciated. ‘ And now about that book,
Mr. Oliver. Was any of it true?”

“A great deal,” replied the author. And
then he caught Kitty’s dark eyes fixed upon
him, and, stopping short in what he was about
to say, he colored visibly, for, with the egotism
re iar to his profession, he had made his
200k an exponent of his own soul at that par-
ticular period of his life, and there was some-
thing in it about a lost. love, which was only
too true, and which Miss Kitty translated by the

   

THE REJECTED WIFE; OR,

light of his momentary confusion precisely a8
he had not intended her to do. A lost love is @
very romantic thing in theory, but no man
likes to own that he has been jilted; and Kit-
ty’s face showed that she knew the truth too
well. Mr. Oliver laid down the book as if it had
stung him, and said that be must go,

The clock struck eight ashe rose from his
chair. They all accompanied him to the gate.
The wind and the rain had gone down—the
sky looked clear and epld, and a white wintry”
moon was waiting to light him home.

“Tt will be fine now,” srid Mr. Atherton, as
he bade him good night. ‘“ You were talking
about ‘ Rufus’ Stone ’ a little while ago, sir. By
the day after to-morrow the forest will be quite
dry enough to cross, and I will show you the
way with pleasure, if you would like to go with
me.”

“T should be delighted,” replied Mr. Oliver,
glancing toward Kitty, who stood in the back-
i. by her lover's side; ‘ but will it not be

ull work for us alone? Can we not make up
a party—I dare say these ladies would like to
go 1

Fancy for a moment, the refined, fastidious
Francis Oliver, who would searcely huve pic-
nicked with the Queen of Sheba herself, asking
—nay, actually pressing—two fat old farmer's
wives, who dropped their h’s, and had a thou-
sand nN peculiarities in their speech, to
join in an excursion to Stony Cross, and accept

im for their cavalier. He did it, however, and
Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Brown were melted !-y his
entreaties, and promised to go. He thanked
them warmly ; and then, turning to the young
farmer, said that of course he and his lovely
little friend would join the party. But the day
appointed was market-day, and William had te
go to Romsey to look after some pigs of @
celebrated forest breed. So it was settled that
Kitty should go without him, and under her
father’s care. The author never once looked at
her while this arrangement was being made,
but stood joking and laughing with Mrs. Brown
about the small cart which was to be chartered
for the use of herself and her friends. If the
donkey gave out, he said he would draw it him-
self; and after they had visited the Cross, they
would light a fire in the forest, and have tea in a
regular gipsy fashion. For which purpose he
would take certain canisters of potted meats
from London in his coat-pocket.

‘* And we’ll bring the tea and sugar,” cried
the delighted old lady ; “ and Kitty will see to
the bread and butter and such like matters
before we start. And, by the way, Brown has
some cows in the forest. I wonder. if by any

chance we could get a peep at them before we —

come back.”

“Oh, by all means let us look up Mr.
Brown’s cows—you and I will
while the others rest after their tea,” said the

 

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A BROKEN LIFE. ; 11

author, holding out his hand with a roguish,
smile.
“Get along with you, making fun of a
Woman old enough to be your mother,” was the
quick reply ; but Mrs. Brown shook hands with
him and liked him none the leas for his little
joke.

It somehow happened that Kitty’s good night
came last He did not joke with her—his
manner changed entirely as he took her hand,
and held it for an instant, while he repeated his
congratulations and good wishes for her happy
future. Then he lifted his hat, and went strol-

ling away up the moonlit road toward his vil-
lage lodgings.

They went back to the little parlor, which
had a strangely-deserted look since he had gone.

rs. Brown and Mrs. Jones soon took their
leave. William lingered a little while longer,

_ kissed Kitty in the vine-shadowed porch, and

’

then trudged homeward, thinking what a lucky
fellow he was, and how little he deserved the
happiness which had befallen him. The old
farmer read the night-prayers, kissed and blessed
his daughter, and went to bed. Kitty saw that
the fire was safe, locked the door, and went up
the stairs to her own room.

At twelve o’clock that night, as Francis
Oliver, tossing and turning restlessly upon his
pillow, saw visions of the past by the pale light
of the moon that wrung his heart with pangs of
“late remorse”, little Kiity sat in her chamber
re-reading his book by the added knowledge of
his looks and spoken words. Beside her on the
table lay something at which she looked when
She closed the book. She touched it—had the
grace to blush deeply—and turning hastily
away, undressed, atl lay down in her bed.

hat was it? I am almost ashamed to tell!

t was a gentleman’s glove of black kid, and
Francis Oliver had dropped it in the poreh
that evening as he was going away.

 

CHAPTER III.
“T played a soft and doleful air,

Isang an old and moving story ;
An old rude song that fitted well

That ruin wild and hoary.
She listened with a flitting blush,

With downcast eyes and modest grace ;
For well she knew, I could not choose

But gaze upon her face.”

—S. T. CoLermnae.

“Verily there is no telling what a man may
o when he is first falling in love,” said Francis
Oliver to himself, as he watched, with great
amusement, the process of “getting under
Way” fur the Forest excursion, on the day ap-
Pointed by the farmer. Mrs. Brown and Mrs.
Jones had litle faith in pedestrian pleasures,

~ and so held to the origmal plan of a donkey-
Cart, which he had proposed half in jest to
them. And the donkey was obstinate, and
would start when he ought to have kept still;
and vice versa; and first the bread and butter,

and then the ham, and then the tea and sugar,
and then the kettles and matches were forgot-
ten; and the two stout ladies created such a

commotion as they ran from the cottage to the

cart, and from the cart to the cottage again,
that all the small boys in the village congregated
outside the gate to watch their proceedings, and
salute them with a triumphant cheer when the
cavalcade was at last set in motion. Mr. Oliver
looked on with an inward shudder of disgust ;
but, when they were fairly off, and little Kitty
came tripping down the walk with her pink
dress, and her freshly-trimmed straw hat, aud
the key of the house-door in her hand, his
mood changed. He gave her his arm as re-
spectfully as if she had been a duchess, ahd
opening a little gate at the side of the garden,
she led him through a green meadow, over a
rustic bridge that spanned a laughing brook,
past 2 deserted farm-house, black with age and
decay—and they were in the very heart of the
Forest.

The author looked round with an exclamation
of surprise and delight. The village of Brook
was not more thau half a mile away, and vet
the silence was as perfect as if they had been
standing in a Western wilderness. On either
side aruse groups of majestic oaks, with tiny
curls of smoke issuing between their branches,
and betokening the presence of human life and
human interests, even there. Before them
opened the sunniest vistas and the greenest
glades, that seemed to lead out of the world
luto some impossible fairy-lund—some paradise
that had survived the Fall. As they went
wandering on, new beauties m:t their eyes at
every turu. Now they passed a rustic cottage,
half hidden with its flowering vines. Now a
bright-eyed child stole out from some winding-
path, glanced at them slyly and ran back again ;
or a drove of small, frolicsome pigs scampered
across the footpath, with hilarious squeals and
gruntings——or a herd of cows looked at them
in sober silence chewing their cuds, or else
tossed their tails in the air, and set off ina
wild gallop for some inaccessible haunt; and
the squirrels chattered, and the wild birds sang,

and the swollen brooks murmured far away, |

till the author's heart grew full with the sense
of Nature’s loveliness, and that sadness, which
such a sense always brings with it, made him
turn to his pretty guide with a feeling of yearn-
ing tenderness he had never known before.
“Ah, Kitty!” he sighed, “it is almost too
fair. It makes me feel so worn-out and gray,
dear child, beside you and all this fresh green
ae I fancy I must be a hundred years
old.” ,
Kitty looked up with a smile of wonder
He beut down toward her innocent young face.
Cupid only knows what he might have said or
done (commend me to the New Forest above
all other places in England for turning one’s

{

 
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head and brains) had she not exclaimed with a
little blush and start :

“O, Mr. Oliver, if you please, we are close
to Rufus’ Stone, and there are my aunts and
father, and the cart!”

If he pleased! At that instant he wished
them all ten thousand miles away. However,
he put the best possible face on the matter,
aud joined them at the Stone. The old farmer
did the honors of the place with iufinite satis-
faction.

“ Here’s where William Rufus was shot, sir,”
he exclaimed; ‘and here, where the stone
stands, the tree grew from which the arrow
glanced. You see the inscription, on three sides
of the stone, sir.”

Mr. Oliver read it aloud :

“* Here stood the oak on which an arrow,
shot by Sir Walter Tyrrell at a stag, glanced
and struck King William IJ., surnamed Rufus,
in the breast, of which he instantly died, on the
2d of August, A. D., 1100.

“«King William II., surnamed Rufus, being
slain, as is before related, was laid in a cart
belonging to one Purkess, and drawn from
hence to Winchester, and was buried in the
cathedral churel of that city.

“<«That where an event so memorable had
happened might not hereafter be unknown, this
stoue was set up by John, Lord Delaware, who
has seen the tree growing in this place, anno
1745.’”

“A long time ago—and they are all dead
and gove together, now!” was the farmer's
comment on the inscription. “They do say,
sir, that Purkess'’s family, at Minstead, have
always owned a horse and cart since that time,
but have never been rich enough to buy a
team. And some gentleman has written a
poem about it. Do you remember it, Kitty?”

Kitty repeated, with a trembling little voice:

“And still, so runs our forest creed,
Flourish the pious yeoman’s seed,
Even in the self-same spot
One horse and cart, their little store,
Like their forefathers, neither more
Nor less, the children’s lot,”

“From Mr. Stewart Rose’s ‘Ballad of the
Red King’ ;” said Mr. Oliver, smiling kindly at
her. « Phank you, Miss Kitty. And now,
when I have succeeded in getiing a bit of stone
to keep in memory of William Rufus, out of
this iron cage at the top, where shall we go?”

‘Kitty waited till he had attained his object,
and then directed his attention to a small

. thatched cottage, at the end of the glade.

“There is such a pretty dairy farm, there.
We always visit it when we come to the Stone.”

“ Let us go now, then.”

They all set off together. The mistress of
the farm, a clean-looking old woman of sixty,
was paring potatoes in her tiled kitchen, and
gladly welcomed them to the humble place.

The author talked with her for more than an

THE REJECTED WIFE; OR,

hour, and left the house in a more serious mood
than ever. That poor old cottager, with her
contented heart and her pious soul, wade him
feel his own littleness so deeply. 1t would have
been better for him, perhaps, if, in the course
of his life, he had met more peuple like her.

Tea was ready beneath the oaks when he
game out, and Kitty, who had stolen away from
him a few moments before, was ready to preside
at the sylvan table. The old farmer bowed his
head and uttered a reverent grace. Mr. Oliver
took his seat beside his particular friend, Mrs.
Brown, and the feast began. Not often, though
he bad sat at rich men’s tables where the wine
flowed fast and free, had he enjoyed an hour
like that. ;

The afternoon waned slowly—the sun was
just sinking goldenly toward the hills, as they
finished their simple meal. Kitty ceased to ve-
plenish the cups, filled her father’s pipe, and
looked around her with a little sigh.

All was so still, so sweet, so peaceful in that
lovely place. Rufus’ Stone cculd be seen at a
distance, between the mossy trunks of the grand
old trees—beyoud it the Fores! stretched far
away toward the lonely hills. At her right was
the modest dairy cottage, and the cows were
coming up the narrow path, lowing gently at
the sight of their mistress, who stood at the
gate to admit them. A pastoral scene enough,
and if it pl ased Kitty—whose innocent life had
been passed among such green retreats, suel
quict nooks—what must it have becn to the
worn and wearied man who sat beside her? He,
too, gazed around and sighed. Then his eyes
sought hers, and she almost fancied they were
dim with tears.

“Come and show me the little krook I hear
singing at a distaner,” he said, in a low voice.

She arose instantly ; and with a slight apology
to the others, he Jed her away. é

They walked through the green solitude, arm
inarm. The voices of the party they had left
were but faintly heard, as they passed down the
sunlit glade. In place of them came the sing-
ing of birds, the neigh of some startled forest
peny with the quick patter of his small hoofs,
and the murmuring of a woodland brook. On
the banks of that litsle stream they paused.
The arching boughs above them shut out the
faint blue sky, but the sunshine still lingered,
making its way through braneh, and Jeal, and
thicket, hovering over Kitty’s graceful figure,
touching with bright rays Kitty's beautiful dark
hair. She stood in the mellow light silent and
half afraid—her hand resting on the autho.’s
arm, her sly eyes glancing every where except at
him. And he, on his part, bent lower, with a
half smile playing around his lips. took that
little hand, was just about to speak, when «
slight rustle. the breaking of a dry branch, th
light tread of an advancing foot, startled them
both. They looked up.

 

 

 
q
a

e

 

 

 

A BROKEN LIFE. 13

Just before them, but on the other side of the

rook, stood a lady, wearing a black cloth habit
fastened with silver buttons, a Spanish hat,
whose black plumes were tipped with silver,
and gauntlet gloves embroidered with floss silk
of the same hue. She held the skirt of her
riding-dress in one hand, the other grasped a
little hunting-whip, and she was standing quite
still, and looking at the pair with an expression
that startled Kitty. She was by no means a
handsome woman. She was tall, and slender,
and finely formed, it is true, but a certain awk-
wardness was visible even in her most quiescent
attitude. Her face was plain, her features
hareh, her complexion but indifferent. She had,

however, a pair of beautiful blue eyes—eyes

that spoke, that sparkled, that smiled, that
wept, that laughed, that danced—changing their
expression and their charm with their owner’s
ever-changing mood. And now they were
riveted on Kitty’s lovely face with a look that
had, possibly, never come into their blue depths
before. There they paused—unconscious rivals
—the one as loveiy as the opening day—the
other, Jacking many @ womanly grace and
charm, but possessing, in their stead, the dead-
liest gift of all, a woman’s fascination !

At first sight of the stranger, Mr. Oliver
started visibly, changing color. Kitty noticed
this, and her heart sank within her with a strange
eons pang, which, she knew quite well, she

ad no right to feel. But in the perfect silence
that ensued, he had time to collect his thoughts.
He took off his hat and bowed deeply.

“Miss Marchmont! This is a most unex-
pected meeting—need I add, a most agreeable
one—to me!”

She turned her eyes on him carelessly, as he
euped across the brook. She let him take her
hand, and then she glanced once more at Kitty.

“ You saw me in many characters last sum-
mer, Mr. Oliver, during our course of private
theatricals,” she said, with a smile. « Hlow do
you like my new appearance, as the Sprite of
the New Forest?”

“Say fairy, rather. The orthodox dress for
a sprite, I believe, is black and red.”

“Court mourning for a certain potentate who
shall be nameless. But black and silver will

-Burely never do for a fairy. I must remain a

8prite.”

“And how did you chance to wander into
this out-of-the-way place? You, of all the
people in the world! I fully believed you were

on the Continent with your friends, the Sef-

tons.”

“So I was. But such a fit—or, I should
rather say, such a delirium of home-sickness
seized upon me last week, that I could endure
it no longer, and I packed up my belongings
and started for ‘England, home, and beauty’
Once again. And then it was so lonely in that
great London house, that I had no sooner

reached it than I set out upon my travels, as
you see.”

‘« Are you stopping here ?” he asked, eagerly.

“ At Stoney Cross—but only for aday. I
came to pay my respects to Rufus’ Stone. I
suppose you are here upon the same errand ?””

“Yes.”

His eye wandered uneasily, as he spoke, ‘o-
ward Kitty, who was still standing where he had
left her, gazing down into the running water
with a very serious face. Miss Marehmont, —
looked at her, and smiled slightly.

“ And, pray, what brought you down here?”
she asked, a moment after.

“T cannot tell you, lam sure, why I came.
I might say, like Bunyan, that one day ‘I fell
on sleep’, and, waking, I found myself here.”

“Tf you fall on sleep again, I can prophesy
a pleasant dream for you. Well, I will neither
spoil sport, nor tell tales out of school; only—
mind this—Mr. Oliver, you are a man of honor.
Remember it—remember to deserve ‘ the grand
old name of gentleman’ in all your dealings with
that pretty child!”

“What can you be thinking of?” he said,
with some warmth. “You may trust me. So
may she.”

“T am glad to hear it. And, now, adieu for
atime. I must go back to my poor pony, who:
is doubtless wondering what on earth has be-
come of me.”

“ Where have you left him ?”

“Tn yonder thicket—under the branches of
a trusty oak.”

“T shall see you safely there, Miss March-
mont.” :

“ Begging your pardon, you will do no such
thing. I havea squire in waiting alréady—both.
younger and better looking than you.”

“Many thanks for the compliment. Who.
may this knight of the Forest be ?”

“Tecannottell. I fancy he isa young farmer.
I met him on the high road, and when he found
out what very wild ideas I had about the geo-
graphy of this place, he kindly volmniteentl to
escort me here. I must not keep him waiting ;
he may be ‘ County Guy’ in disguise, for aught
we know.”

‘ Very likely,” said Mr. Oliver, biting his lip.
with a vexed air. “And when do you leave
Stoney Cross for London ?” :

“To-morrow. And you?”

“Tn a week, or ten days at the latest. May
I call in Mayfair when I return ?”

“Most certainly. Mind, I am to hear the-
conclusion of this little forest romance before
you put it into your usual three volumes—”

“ What do aa mean ?”

“Ah! youknow. I should not like to fall in:
love with an author, and be dished up afters
ward for his readers’ amusement. However;
your little rustic beauty may not mind ; and so,
adieu !”

 
  

 

 

~ Pshaw!

he had left her horse.

   

14

With a musical laugh that grated harshly on
his ear, she gathered up her habit and walked
away. He stood gazing after her with a peculiar
expression on his face, till she disappeared
beneath the arching branches of the forest trees,
then he drew a long breath—whether it was a
sigh of regret or an aspiration of thankfulness
he seemed scarcely to know himself.

“7 wonder now, whether, and how much I
eare for that woman?” was his inward com-
ment upon the interview. ‘She is undeniably
ugly, and I love beauty. She is awkward, and
[love grace. She domineers over me, and I
like a woman to be submissive. She has brains,
and in the sex I don’t appreciate them. She is
the exact opposite in the face, form, character,
and soul of my ideal lady-love—and yet, how

is it that I feel this queer sense of loss and

bereavement whenever she leaves me? She
affects me like some old familiar strain of music.
She makes me think, remember, and regret. I

don’t like it—I don’t like her; and as for loving

—why it would be impossible for me to love a
woman with a face like that. It is only some
memory of the past and of my happier years
that has got mixed up with her idea in my mind.
Am I to waste my time pondering over
a woman who writes sonnets and talks such
nonsensical German trash as Olive Marchmont

sometimes does, while a modest little beauty

like that is waiting for me—learning to love me,
ready at one word from my lips, to come and
bless my lonely life ?”

He smiled gayly at the thought, erossed the
brook, and placing Kitty’s hand upon his arm
again, led her back to the party, who were just
preparing for their return.

* * * * * * *

Miss Marchmont returned to the place where
It was grazing peacea-
bly beside the stout brown cob which her un-
known escort had ridden; but the young far-
mer himself was leaning against a tree, his arma
folded on his breast, and his hat pulled low
over his eyes. He looked up as she came near,

and something in his face surprised her. It

had been a comely, happy face enough when
she had looked at it before—comely it was still
—but a dreadful pallor overspread it, and pain
and trouble that could not be mistaken looked
out of those bright blue eyes.

“ What is the matter with you?” she asked.
“ Are you ill?”

“No! I wish I was,” was the abrupt reply.
“ Have they gone ?”

“They! Whom do you mean ?”

“T saw you talking to him just now. I mean
Mr. Oliver, the London writer.
him well?” |

A light began to break upon his listener’s
ming, 4% #

“Yes,” she said cautiously, “I do know him.
i have known him for several years.”

Do you know

THE REJECTED WIFE; OR,

“ Are you a friend of his ?”

She blushed slightly.

“Why do you ask?”

“ Because I want some one to speak to him
for me. Some one that he will listen to. Some
one that can speak very plainly without giving
him offence.”

“ Well, taking it for granted that Iam such

a person (of which I am by no means sure,’

mind you), what do you wish me to say?’

“Tm only a plain man—a poor, rough-epok-
en fellow, dear lady—and perhaps I am ‘ching
too great a liberty in troubling you with my
affairs.”

‘‘Not at all—pray go on.”

“Well, thie is what I have to say. You saw
Kitty Atherton with him just now?”

“That pretty girl? Yes.”

“All my life long I have loved her. We
played together when we were little children ;
we have grown up together, and she is my
promised wife. nly the other day, in the
presence of her father and her aunts, she gave
me her promise, and Jet me put a ring on her
finger—and now—and now—she is banging on
his arm, and looking up into his face, and lis-
tening to his words, without a thought of me!
Mind,” he continued, eagerly, “I don’t blame
her—not a bit. It is only natural, poor child,
that she should prefer a handsome, clever
young man like him toa clown like me. But,
O dear lady, he ean never love her as I love
her! He will never take the pains to make her
happy that I would and do take every day of
my life.”

“Tam sure of that,” said Miss Marchmont,
kindly.

“He isa learned man—a great man—and he
would have a thousand things to occupy his
mind and take his thoughts away from ers
if he married her. And then she would be un-
happy. I should have nothing to do, all da
lon but eh her comfort bud to love ba
dearly when I was, away at my work—nothing
to look forward to but her loving kiss and kind
welcome whenI came home at night. If I was
sure of them, dear lady, I should be the happi-
est man on earth—if I miss them”—his voice
trembled, and he passed his hand across his
eyes—“ if 1 miss them,I am ruined in every

way.” ‘

Miss Marchmont looked at him wistfully.
Wordly though she was, she had yet a fund of
sympathy and pity to spare for a sorrow like
this ; pes her voice was very gentle and sooth-
ing as she said:

“T think I know the whole story, now. J
heard them speaking of you and your Kitty
at Stoney Cross last night. You are William
Hill, are you not ?”

“cc I am.” -

“ And Kitty has given her solemn promise to
marry you?’

 

 
 

a

| While she stood alone on the other.

 

 

A BROKEN LIFE.

“ Only the day before yesterday. Her father
and her aunts both heard her.”

“And when did Mr. Oliver appear on the
Scene ?” \

“That very evening. But I never fancied
Kitty liked him till a few moments ago. I saw
You talking to him on one side of the brook,
She look-
ed at you, dear lady, as I should look at him.
At wrung her heart to see you together almost
mw much as it wrung mine to watch her. She
Was jealous of you, and jealousy only comes
With love.”

“Jealous of me!” said Miss Marchmont, with
® scornful emile. ‘There was little need of
that, if she knew all. But, William, you are
quite right ; if she feels jealousy, she begins, at
least, to like him. What am I to do to help
you ?”

» Ask him to go away—beg him to go away.
Tell him all I have said, if you like. You see,
1b is his. writing—his learning—that has won

\tty’s heart from me. If he goes now, she
May forget him; but if be stays, 1 know too
Well what the end of it will be. How can I ex-
pect her to give me a look or a word while he
is there. And it is nothing but amusement to
tlm, while to me it is a matter of life and

eath.”

He burst into tears as he spoke, and turned
away. Miss Marchmont laid her hand upon
his shoulder.

“Nay, don’t hide them. Don’t be ashamed
of them. They do you infinite honor, and Kit-
ty ought to be proud of having won such a
faithful heart. Take courage, and all will yet

e well. I will go home and write a letter to
tr. Oliver that will bring him to his senses.
€ is a man of honor, and he will leave the

Crest at once. Come, put me on my horse,
nd ten years hence, when I visit you and Kit-
ty, we will come here and have a hearty laugh
ver the trouble that looks so grievous now.”

He assisted her to mount, and placed the
Yeins carefully in her hand, but his face did not

righten at her prediction.

“T wish it may end well ; but I have a fear—

Bay fear here—at my heart,” he said,
Sadly.

“Send it to the winds,” replied Miss March-
ont, holding out her band with a smile.
And now good-bye. Believe me, I will do
y best in your cause.”

“Good-bye, and God bless you for ever,
dear lady, and give you your own heart's de-
Sire !” he said, as he raised that gracious hand
to his lips as gracefully as Francis Oliver could
lave done .

She tightened het reins suddenly, and gal-
loped toward Stoney Cross but her eyes
Were so fuil of tears that she could scarcely see

‘er way, and her heart was aching. Oh! which
of those two could have felt the greatest pain?

15

“My own heart’s desire!” she murmured to
herself. “Ob, fool that I am! What but
Dead Sea apples, fair to the sight and full of
bitter ashes within, can I ever hope to gather
from my tree of life? ‘’Tis a mad world, my
masters’—a world that is all at sixes and sevens
—all out of joint, all wrong! And what can
set it right ?”

Ah, Olive Marehmont! only one thought—
only one hope—has power to do that. ‘ihe
thought of another world in harmony with
itself and with God, and the hope of an en-
trance, a@ welcome, and an eternal dwelling-
place there! » y ED

CHAPTER IV.

“ Lady Clara Vere de Vere,
I know you proud to bear your name,
Your pride is yet no mate for ming.)
* * * * * yr
“ Nor would I break for your sweet sake,
A heart that dotes on truer charms}
A simple maiden in her flower, ik: > eee
Is worth a hundred coats of arms.” “*- =~"
—TENNYSON.
The Jetter which was to bring Mr. Oliver “to.
his senses” was duly written that night, and
sent to the “ Bell Inn” the next morning by
the trusty hand of the hostler at Stoney Cross.
Mr. Oliver was stillasleep. The chambermaid
dared not knock at his door till she was sum-
moned by him, so the man returned without an
answer. Miss Marchmont sat in her breakfast-
parlor awaiting him. When be had told his
tale, her face darkened over like a winter sky.
“Tell them to get me a carriage, quick !”” she
exclaimed; “I wish to get away within ten
minutes. Don’t stand staring there, but hurry
the horses, and tell them to make out the
bill.”
4 The man obeyed with a stupid gaze of won-
er.
Miss Marchmont’s silk dress rustled stormily
as she ran up to her chamber, and with her
own hands gathered together her “ belong:
ings”, and crammed them into the small trunk
she had brought with her. Generally speaking,
she was a most orderly person ; tidiness with
her was nearly a disease, and the sight of a
crowded drawer or a toilet-table, whose appur-
tenances were not laid down by plummet and
rule, almost made her ill. But now she searce-
ly seemed to know or care what she was dving.
Her riding-habit, spurs, boots, and whip were
crammed into the box close beside black muiré
antiques, lutestrings, and velvet jackets; the
diamond studs she sometimes wore, found a
re in her box of pens; her Maltese lace eol-
ars and chemisettes were rolled up like a bun-
die of rags, and stuffed into a vacant corner,
and she herself seemed perfectly unconscious
all the while of the wild confusion she was mak-
ing. Forcing down the lid of the trunk, she
locked it, and rang for a servant to carry it

if

 
   
 

 

16

away ; then, putting on her hat and cloak, she
snatched up her gloves and returned to the par-

Aor. In ten minutes more she had settled the

bill, bidden her landlady good-bye, and was
riding away toward Lyndhurst Station as fast as
the pony-chaise could carry her. What could
she have expected, what had she failed to find,
that she was thrown into such a fever of impa-
tient excitement?

That morning she fancied she had made a
fool of herself. She had written, according to
promise, to Mr. Oliver, mentioping her adven-
ture with “ County Guy”, and begging him, if
his own heart was not engaged in the pursuit of
‘the rustic beauty, to relinquish it in the young
farmer’s favor. It was an awkward task for her
to undertake, and she had made the matter
worse, by an allusion to herself, which she fan-
cied it must be impossible for him to mistake.
What madness dictated the words she could
not tell—but they bad been written and would
be read—and they amounted to no less than a
tacit confession of her preference for him. Had
that message found him awake—had he trans-
lated it rightly, and believed in the truth of his
own translation, how much suffering might
have been spared them both!

As it was, her face burned with blushes dur-
ing her rapid ride, although she was alone.
She had forfeited her own self-respect, and that
was bitter—she had richly earned his contempt,
aud that was more bitter still. Restless, irrita-
ble, wild with the pangs of wounded love and
wounded pride, she chafed over her mistake
like a caged lioness, and scarcely drew a free
breath till she was safe that night in her Lon-
don home. ‘There, with the letters that had ar-
rived during her absence, the housekeeper’s re-
port. and the proofs of her book, which was
just passing through the press, she managed to
forget for a time what she had done.

The letter which had disturbed her so deep-
ly was given to Mr. Oliver at the breakfast-
table, by the rosy-cheeked servant who waited
on him. He was busy with the morning paper
when she laid it down, and not till he had
glanced through all the columns, and duly di-
gested the leading articles, did he break its
seal.

A vivid color suffused his face as he saw the
firm, clear writing, and the signature upon the
last, page. He read the first words with an im-
patient pshaw! Actually smiled over the de-
scription of William Hill’s troubles, and mur-
mured to himself that it was a bit of Miss
Marchmont’s “ pathetic line of business” ; but
came at last upon a passage that made him
pause and look more serious :

*€You have many acquaintances in London who are
certainly able to interest and amuse you, if you cannot
interest and amuse yourself ; you have, in me, an earnest
ana sincere friend, whose home is always open to receive

you, whose heart is always ready to give you sympathy
and kindness, if.youclaim it, Our.pursuits, our inter-

THE REJECTED WIFE; OR,

ests, and our tastes are the same—we have, I hope, the
same professional end in view—we can help each other,
counsel each other, guide each other, do each other good.
Can you not, then, for the sake of such a friendship,
renounce a fleeting fancy — go back to your pleasant
author life, and make this poor man happy in the home
and in the way he is longing for ?”

There was little else in the letter to attract
his attention ; he hurried it through, and then
returned to those sentences which might mean
so much or so little—those sentences which
poor Olive, driving through the Forest at. that
moment on her way to town, would have given
worlds never to have written,

“A friend whose home is always open to me
whose heart is always ready to give me sym-
pathy and kindness,” he mused. ‘Why, @
wife could do no more! ‘If I claim it!’ Is
that a challenge—a hint—a mental beckoning
with her fairy hand, I wonder? It would not be
a bad thing for me. She bas a fortune, a house
in town, good horses, she gives capital dinners,
and one is sure to meet in her rooms all the
celebrities of the day. She is a clever author-
ess, and will be a famous one yet ; and I think
she cares for me! On the other hand, to coun-
terbalance all this, she is not pretty ; her best
friends could not tell her that! She is not
graceful, she is not accomplished, she will dress
herself eternally in black, and she has none of
those little, womanly ways and weaknesses
which I admire; she is too independent, too
capable of taking care of herself. Nothing of
the vine about her—she will grow on her own
ground, or not at all!”

He spread out her note before him, and
smiled over it.

“Look at that waste of ink and energy !
She writes as if she were making a charge with
cavalry. I wonder the pen does not go through
the paper. How different from Kitty's little
pot-hooks and hangers. Dear child—she speié
‘affectionate’ with one ‘f’ last night and yet I
could not find it in my heart to tell her of the
blunder.”

He glanced kindly at the little blue and gold
edition of ‘ Moore’s Poems” which Kitty had
given him at his urgent request, just before he
had left her on the previous evening. He
turned to the title-page and read again :

Franots OLIVER, EsQ.,
With the en regards
0

i his little friend,
Kirry ATHERTON.
Side by side they were lying—the girl’s uncer-
tain scrawl, the woman’s firm, decided * hand-
writing. And Mr. Oliver was looking first ab
one and then at the other, with a puzzled, un-
decided face that was good to see.

“Like the famous ass between two bundles
of hay !” he said at last, with a scornful smile,
“I cannot tell which I love. Is it Kitty, with
her sweet voung face, and artless ways ; or is ié
Miss Marchmont, the friend who is ready to

 

 

 

 
we

 

 

hand, he rode awey again.

 

 

A BROKEN LIFE. Ree

give me sympathy and kindness when I claim
it?. She shall decide. I will go and ask her
this very morning, before she returns to Lon-
don; and if she accepts me, Kitty, my pretty
Kitty, f must even give you back to William
Hill!”

He rang the bell, and having made a careful
toilet, mounted the young landlord’s brown
¢ob, which was always at his service, and rode
away toward Stoney Cross. The broad highway
was before him, but he chose to take the Forest
Road, and passing by the cottage where Kitty

Was busy at work, lifted his hat to her, and bent

almost to his saddle-bow as he galloped by.
The silly little thing ran straightway up to her
chamber, all blushing and trembling, and from
the latticed window watched him till he was out
of sight. The small simpleton actually thought
that he had ridden by for the express purpose
of seeing her; and a vision of a galloping steed,
and a handsome, stately rider, filled her head all
the morning, to the sad detriment of the farmer’s
noonday meal. Alas! poor Kitty! you are, by
no means, the first of your sex whom cireum-
stances and a man have made an utter fool.

The brown eob galloped steadily on Besiae
the Forest brook, its rider drew rein tor a few
moments, and sat lost in a reverie, with his
eyes fixed upon the bank where Olive Mareh-
mont had stood on the previous afternoon.
The old strange sense of loss and bereavement
came over him, and he felt that he was right,
as he rode on toward her temporary home, to
ask the question which should forever unite or
forever separate their two destinies.

Ah! how comically sad, how luaicrous'y
pathetic are these crosses in life! Here was

the knight, ready and eager to pay his vows

at the lady’s shrine; and the lady herself,
frightened, and ashamed, and repentant at the
unsought encouragement she had already given,
was flying the country at the rate of twenty
miles an hour, little dreaming that the words
She would have given her ears to hear, were
trembling on the tip of her lover's tongue. I
Could find it in my heart to laugh at Mr. Oliver,
as he sits there, mute and grave, listening to
the bar-maid’s story of how “the lady flewed
Uup-stairs all of a sudden, packed up her things
her own self, and was off in a jiffy, leaving
them all ina flustration, like.”

“That will do, thank you,” said Mr. Oliver,
at last; and putting a piece of silver in her
Where? He
Searcely knew or cared at that moment; but
the brown cob, like a wise beastie, struck into
the road that led toward home.

CHAPTER V.

“ Take this kiss upon the brow!
And in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow:

You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dreams
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it, therefore, the less gone ?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.”
‘ —Epa@ar A. Pox.

‘Duped—foiled—laughed at once again!”
was Mr. Oliver’s mental comment on the tale
he had heard at Stoney Cross, ‘It was a trap,
of course, set for me by Miss Marchmont—a
trap for my vanity, and I was too blind to see
it. How she will laugh when she hears how
eagerly I caught at the bait! By Jove! I
ean’t bear that. I must show her that I am not
the idiot she takes me to be. And there is but
one way of doing that. I must marry ; I must
take no flirting city belle to make a further
laughing-stock of her literary husband. I must
have some one who will love me dearly—who
will give me the first freshness of an untried
life—an untried heart. I should be madder than
a Mareh hare if I looked for such a thing in
London: the search would be as hopeless as
that of Diogenes with his lantern. But Kitty—
God bless her!—Kitty,can give me all I ask;
and she sbell. And so, Miss Marehmont,
adieu!”

He waved his hand, as if in farewell, and
burst into the refrain :

“ He turned him right and round abou,
Upon the Irish slrore,
With adieu forevermore, my love
Adieu forevermore.” ”
but it aied upon his lips, and he rode toward
the cottage in a silent mood.

Kitty was watching again at the open window.
There is something passing sweet in being
watched and waited tor; and how her face
brightened as she saw him ride up to the gate!
She was down before he had time to dismount,
gazing at him with eyes that spoke the sweetest
flattery. Dinner was just over, and she had
dressed herself for the afternoon in her pretty
pink print, with a clean collar, and a rose in
her dark hair. Mr. Oliver looked at her wist-
fully. Her artless welcome, her unaffected joy,
her undisguised admiration, fell like soothing
balm upon his wounded pride — his aching
heart.

“ Kitty,” he said, “ may 1 come in for a 1ittle
while? TI feel tired, and lonely, and ill.”

The bright face softened, 5

“ Oh yes—if you please. Aunt Sarah is here ;
but you won’t mind her ?”

“‘Not at all Can we send the horse back to
tne inn ?”

“Father will take if when he goes to his
work. Pray, come in, sir.”

He obeyed. Mrs. Brown greeted him warms

 

 
———

 

 

    
 

18
ly—-so did the old farmer.
away, and he himself was established near the
window, in the arm-chair, with a pillow
smoothed by Kitty’s hands behind his aching
head, and her tiny flask of hartshorn in his
hand Now and then he closed his eyes, and
the little forest brook, and the tall figure of
Miss Marchmont rose before him. He opened
them, and lo! the little garden outside, with its
late blooming flowers, and small] holly tree ;
and, within, the cheerful fire, the tidy room,
the anxious, kindly faces—all for him. Kitty's
soft voice in his ear—Kitty’s little hands baths
ing his throbbing temples—Kitty’s dark eyes
fixed upon him with such watchful love. Ah
Miss Marchmount! are you already forgotten?
and was the wound you gave a mere pin-prick
to vanity, not a deadly stab at the beating
heart ?

It would seem so; for the afternoon passed
away, and yet he made no attempt to go. He
shared their evening-meal, and sat talking with
the old farmer afterward, as quietly as if he
had been one of the usual family-cirele. Kitty
listened, speaking seldom, but looking very
happy. But when Mrs. Brown went away to
her own home, and Mr. Oliver drew his chair a
little nearer to Kitty’s, and began to talk to
her, another visitor made his appearance, who
startled them both unaccountably. Why? It
was only William Hill, and Mr. Oliver was ask-
ing a simple question about the sewing of a
seam—nothing more—-nothing that need have
made them both both blush so furiously.

They did blush, however, and William Hill
saw it distinctly. ‘lhe young men greeted each
other coldly. Some wild idea of out-staying the
new-comer seemed for a time to possess Mr.
Oliver’s mind, but he thought better of it at
last, and took up his hat to go. The farme:
accompanied him to the gate, and as he stood
watching outside for a few moments after the
old man had said good-night, he had the felici-
ty of aed two shadows upon the white blind
—two shadows, and so very close together! A
sharp pang of jealousy came and went—then
he laughed bitterly at his own folly.

“She is as good as his wife—what right have
I to come between them? I will go back to
London to-morrow,” he said to himself; and,
pulling his hat over his eyes, he set off ata
rapid pace for the inn.

The group he left behind did little to enter-
tain each other, The farmer smoked his pipe,
Kitty sewed, and William turned over the
leaves of the book that lay on the table by her
side. It was a newly-published novel, and he
glanced at a sentence here and there, scarcel
understanding what the words could mean, til
turning to the title-page, he dropped the
volume as if if had burned his fingers. Kitty
sewed more industriously than ever, without
looking up. No need for her to glance at that

THE REJECTED WIFE; OR,

His horse was led

now-familiar name, “ Francis Oliver’. Was not
every letter, every graceful curve and flourish
the wayward pen had made in inseribing it,
stamped upon her brain—nay, upon her heart
itself?

At that moment the clock struck nine, and
the farmer knocked the ashes from his pipe,
and bade the lovers good night. William sat
in silence till he heard the chamber door close
behind him, then laid his hand upon Kitty’s
sewing. She looked up, and let him take it
away without a word. She saw in his eyes that
the dreaded time for explanation had come.

“Sit here by me,” he said, drawing the
farmer’s chair close beside his own.

She obeyed, and, leaning back, covered her
eyes with her hand. She felt so guilty at that
moment that she could have sunk into the very
depths of the earth only to be out of William's
sight. If, for a moment, he had cherished any
secret hope that he might have been mistaken
in his thoughts about Kitty and the author, I
think it must have vanished then and there, as
he looked upon that hidden face, that shrinking,
trembling form. It was some time before he
spoke again ; but when he did so, his voice was
very kind.

“Kitty, dear, don’t be frightened. I am not
going to scold or blame you. I only want to
talk to you seriously for a few moments, if you
will let me. May 1?”

“Yes,” sighed Kitty.

“Take away your hands, then—let me look at
you. What can bem be afraid of, my love ?
Don’t you know
ment than give you pain 2?”

“Oh, that is it!—that is it!" eried Kitty in a
choked voice. ‘ You are so kind—-too kind—
and I—I am a wretch !’

It was a tacit confession of her inconstancy
—he felt it s»>-—and, from that moment, neither
attempted to hide it or disguise it any more.

“No; don’t say that love. You are my own
good little Kitty now, as you have ever been.
But you have made a mistake about me, have
you not? You thought you loved me when—

ou promised to be my wife—” The brave
ellow’s voice faltered a little, and he could not

‘0 on.

But Kitty, forgetting him for a moment, and
only eager to excuse her own apparently-inex-
cusable conduct, started up, took his passise
hand, and cried out, blushing : “Oh, indeed I
did, Williaia, or I would never have promised,
T always thought I loved you—till—”

“Till Mr. Oliver came!” he said, finishing
the sentence for her.

She hung her head, and touched his hand
humbly with her lips.

“OQ William, forgive me. I eould no’
help it, though I tried. He was so clever—sc
eeu t different from any one I had ever seer

efore.’

 

 

would rather die this mo-

 

oe

 

 
 

 

 

 

A BROKEN LIFE. : 19

“He was—and he is!” replied the young
man. with bitter emphasis. “And he is hand-
Some and rich into the bargain. He ean give

You a splendid home, and a name that every

one knows. I have nothing to offer you but a

poor gottage, these strong hands, this honest

heart! Kitty—I don’t blame you for choosing
him instead of me.”

“Oh, how you wrong me! she exclaimed,
With suiden energy. “It is not the home and
the name I eare for; it is himself! At first, it
was his writinus I admired; but now, if he

Were a beggar in rags, I would go with him, if

he asked me, work, beg, and die with him, if
need be, because he is sv @ear—so dear to me,
that I cannot find words to say what I feel!”

She stopped short, for Wilham turned so
pale that she could not but remember where
she was, and to whom and of whom she was
Speaking.

“You sav this to me!’—he murmured—* to
me! And I was to have been your husband in
three months more. O Kitty, it is hard!”

She could not but be moved by the sight of
his sufferings.

“Forgive me,” she said gently. “I ought

| hot to have said it; but the words came, and I

Could not stop them.”

“No doubt—no doubt. Never mind me,
Kitty, Tean bear it. And I may as well know
the worst. When a man has got his death-blow,
© stab or two more or Jess makes little differ-
€nee to him. Now, tell me all. Talk to me as
if I was your own brother. Las this man
asked you to marry him?”

eRe!"

“Jle has some honor then about him. He
knew you were engaged to me, and he has re-
8peeted us both so far, for whieh I thank bim.

ut when |e knows that you are free, as he
Will know to-morrow, Kitty, he will ask you to
Marry him. If 1 was not sure of that, 1 would
Not let you go. What auswer shall you give?”

Was there any need to ask that question ?

he look at her downeast eyes should have
Been enough. Nay, it was enough, and he
Went ou with a patient sigh, that never reached

er car.

“T would not say one word, Kitty, to make
You unhappy; but I do think that when he

Asks you that question, you oueht to ask him

Mother: about that lady from London who
Was here the other day. Do you remember ?”

Kitty colored brightly. Had she not wasted
Many an hour sinee that sunny afternoon, in

Vion conjectures about the stranger, who, al-

‘hough she was not gifted with beauty or
tie, had yet managed to take Mr. Oliver from
hey, and make him utterly oblivious of her
Presence, for a fall quarter of an hour? That
lady who had known him before she herself
tad, but of whom he said so little—-that lady
Who stood suddenly beside the Forest brook, ag

if she had dropped from the clouds, aud who
looked at her with so much meaning in her
eyes! And William could ask if she remember-
ed her! ‘

“What of her! What do you know of her?
What is she to Mr. Oliver? What is Mr.
Oliver to her?” she cried out, eagerly.

“ Those are questions which Mr. Oliver must
answer,” was the grave reply. “I know nothin
more of the lady than this, that she was ioe
and kind to me, when I needed goodness and
kindness most; and that it struck me then,
through all my trouble, that she was fond of
Mr. Oliver. I don’t know if I was mistaken or
not. People ought not to marry without the
fullest mutual understanding on such points as
these.”

Kitty sighed, and said she thought so too;
but all the while her heart was very sore at the
thought that Miss Marchmont, or Miss Any-
bodyelse, could ever, at ary period of his former
life, have been more to Francis Oliver than she
was now. If he could have come to her as she
came to him, loving for the first time, with
pure lips and a fresh heart, how much dearer
he would have been! She did not put that
feeling into words. She might have denied its
existence if any one else had done so, but it was
there all the same,

William, who had been watching her chang-
ing face for some time in silence, now tose to

OG 4

“Tt is getting late, Kitty; the clovk will
soon strike ten. I have much to do before I
sleep, Jam going away to-morrow.”

“Going? Where ?”

“To London.”

“So suddenly. And because of this—be-
cause of me?”

“Even so, Kitty. Do you quite understand
what this visit means? Do you see that I am
leaving you to-night, as free as it is possible for
a woman tobe? Do you know that I shall never
look upon your face again for many a year—
never see you, dhe till you have your
children at your knee? It is true, Kitt
feeling all that I do feel, do you think I could
stay here, and see it all brought about? Oh,
no! I love you so well, that if I am in the
way of your happiness, I ean stand aside and
let mine go; but it must be away from here—
away from the old home—away from you. And
sol am going to my father’s brother in Lon-

don, and he will send me abroad to America, —
He has land there that ought to be looked after. _

T am fit to do that, if nothing more. So God
bless you, my dear, and make you happy in
your own way. You will think, sometimes, of

your old playfellow, won’t you, Kitty—of the
poor fellow who loved you—” ~

He broke down at last, and leaning his head
Her
She said

upon her shoulder, eried like a child.
tender little heart could not bear it.

; and ©

 

 

 
20

between her own sobs, that he should not go;
and that she would try to love him once again,
and be a good wife to him if he would but take
her back. That promise roused him—made a
man of him once more! —

“You are an angel—a tender, pitying angel,”
he said, as he took both her hands in his, and
looked down into her pale little face. ‘I shall
' take the memory of your kindness with me
wherever I may go, but you shall not give up
your own heart’s desire for me. No, Kitty ;
marry him, if he is so dear, and may his wish
about you come true—‘a long life, a happy
home, and some one there to love you always’.
Now, God bless you, my dear; you will let me
kiss you for the last time. Good-bye, Kitty.
Good-bye!”

He touched her forehead lightly with his
lips, and was gone. She thought she heard
him sob as he closed the door. She herself sat
down and cried as if her heart would break.
The fire died out—the candle flickered and
burned low—she shivered all over when she went
upstairs to bed. Poor little Kitty! It was the
first time she had ever grieved or pained any
one in her short life; and to grieve William
was the worst of all. Her earliest playmate,
her kindest friend, the child’s sweetheart, the
girl’s protector, the maiden’s lover—oh, it was
unpardonable! She wept herself to sleep with
the bitterest tears those sweet dark eyes had
ever known.

CHAPTER VI.

“‘T stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand.
How few! Yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep—while I weep!
0 God! can [not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wav
Is all we see or seem
But a dream within a dream ?”

—Enpe@ar A. Por,

At three o’clock the next morning, William
Hill came out of his own little cottage, and
closing the door carefully behind him, in order
that he might not disturb his still-sleeping
housekeeper, set off down the road in the di-
rection of Kitty’s home. His preparations for
the journey. had all been made, his luggage
was to follow him to London, and he himself
was to walk over to Lyndhurst to breakfast and
catch the early express train. He had said
good-bye to his housekeeper, his favorite
hound, and nut-brown horse, before he slept.
There remained but one last farewell, and then

he was free !
~The ehureh clock struck the half-hour, as he
came in sight of Kitty’s home. Serene, in a
lightly-clouded sky, shone the yellow moon;

THE REJECTED WIFE; OR,

her light falling with the softest beams (it ;
seemed to him) around the hallowed spot where
his love was sleeping. He paused beside the
old wooden stile, where Kitty had so often
lingered on summer evenings, long gone by, to
listen to his loving sketches of their future
home; he leaned against her favorite seat and
looked up at her latticed window with a bitter
groan. His simple soul was bewildered by the
blow that had fallen so suddenly—his Joyal
loving heart could seareely comprehend how
such a thing could be. The most beautiful,
the most intellectual woman on earth could
never have tempted him from his allegiance
Venus and Minerva together would have been
eclipsed, in his eyes, by little Kitty. How dif
ferently she must have felt for him all the
while, since the first word, the first look of this
hated stranger bad drawn her heart away !
Poor William! It was indeed a bitter draug ht
to drink. Jealousy is as cruel as the grave, and
when it is well founded—when your rival is
handsomer, cleverer, richer, and more agreeal le

‘e

than you—when, compared with him or hur, |

you are mentally, morally, and physically 4

dwarf, a pigmy—it does not by any means take | ;

from the weight of your burden, or add to your
capacity for bearing it.

rise only in selfishness and wounded pride
we all know tiat; but while selfishness aind
pride are born witi us, and remain with us till
we die, I do not see how we are to escape these
pangs, except by loving no one very deeply:

The saints of olden times, who came as nel
perfection as poor human nature can ever hope
to come, may have laid aside their self-will and
self-loye so entirely as positively to rejoice in

The feeling has its |

slights and humiliations; but I question much, |)

if, in this nineteenth century, any heart can be |
found that (however much all outward manic
festation of feeling may be hidden) will, in 4

ease like this, draw back with honest meekness; |

and own that another is worthier of the prize | a

Conseions,, it may be, of that other’s worthy —
and its own imperfections all the while, yeb |
inwardly pained auc wronged, and deeply xe
sentful when the beloved object grows couseious
too! Ah, no; whatever we may be to thé
world and to ourselves, we all want to be first
and foremost in the estimation of the one
We all echo Montrose’s egotistical song,
“As Alexander I will reign,
And I will reign alone,

My thoughts did evermore disdain
A rival on the throne.”

It is selfish, itis wrong, it is laughable, perhap® .

but also it is very natural, Just one jittle

kingdom—one little world, where we may reig®y Ee

and “ bear, like the Turk, no brother near thé
throne”.
common right of every son and daughter ©
Adam, But people do not always find theif

This is the common desire and th@ |

desires granted, or their rights maintained 12 |

 
i RG sR ee

Dore Gel 2M Oo B~ © RM Cr

aS

A BROKEN LIFE.

' this world, as we learn to our cost. When we

find that the kingdom has revolted or been
stolen treacherously away—when we see the
“conquering hero” marehing in with banners
flying, drums beating, trumpets sounding,: to
take possession of his loval province, while we,
who ouce owned or thought we owned it, are
fain to creep through the victorious procession,

- and hide ourselves in shame and grief beyond

its walls—is it strange, after all, that the tumult
of our thoughts points rather to angry revenge
than to meek submission ?

I think not, and remembering certain pangs
which I myself underwent in my younger and
more impressible days, I feel inclined to sympa-
thize with this poor young farmer, when under-
standing but vaguely yet resenting keenly
those qualities in his rival which had wou
Kitty’s heart, all his pain, and agony, and fever
of wounded love and pride culminated in
unmitigated wrath against Francis Oliver, the
man who, with so many gifts, so many blessings,
so many to love him, had come there to steal
the one little ewe-lamb, the poor man’s sole
possession. In no spirit of profanity did he

_Make the comparison. He had never read that

passage without an involuntary thought of her,
and now she was for ever lost to him. He
‘could not hate her, he could not wish harm to
her; but woe to the man who had crossed his
path, if by any chance they met! And then
glancing once more toward the modest little
* chamber, he Jaid his head upon the stile, and

burst into tears.

So it went on—the old story—the old grief,
Which everyone knows by experience, better
than words can tell it! First tears, then anger,
then wild reproaches, then tears again—frantie
and useless strivings against what was, and what
Was to be, while the “still moon looked calmly
on his pain”! The clock struck four. He
turned for a moment before he left the stile to
gaze over the fair expanse of country on which
the moon smiled down. He never saw it again,

ave in some passing day-dream, but every

little hill and undulating valley, every tree, and
brook, and flower, and, most of all, that rustic
Cottage with its latticed windows and vine-
Wreathed porch, was stamped ineffaceably on
his brain. And many a time, years afterward,
in his western home, that quiet moonlight
Shone, and the English village and the church
Upon the hill rose up vividly before him, and he
Sickened at the memory, and prayed in vain for
Test and peace from its haunting presence.
or his was one of those unfortunate natures
that can never forget—one of those unfortunate
learts that can never change !
_A week later, he sailed for America. And
little Kitty, without knowing it, had lost the
indest, bravest, and truest heart that ever beat
or broke for her sweet sake
_ Did Kitty care?

I seareely know how to answer tne question.
Women’s hearts are not always as hard as nether
millstones, and it was impossible that she should
not feel some regret for the pain she had in-
flicted on one, whose worst fault was loving her
too well. But, after the first bitter tears had
been shed, and the first feeling of loneliness
overcome, I am afraid that her spirit danced
joyously in the sunlight of liberty—that her
whole nature thrilled with ecstasy to know that
she was free! It seemed cruel and wicked to
rise the morning after that sad parting, with
such a spring of life and happiness within her
breast—it seemed unkind to rejoice in the
beauty of the opening day, the singing of the
birds, the familiar village sounds, when poor
William was so many miles away; yet she
could not help it; and the farmer, coming home
to breakfast, found her “lilting” merrily as
she made the tea, about the lassie who “ ea’d
the yowes to the knowes” in company with her
shepherd swain.

The old man sat down to his simple meal with
a roguish smile.

“ You seem very happy, Kitty,’’ he remarked.
“T thought how it would be when I heard Wil-
liam go away so late last night. Have you
said your last words as lovers, and is the day
fixed for next week instead of three months
hence, that you have turned canary after such
a fashion ?”

Kitty turned red and white as he looked at
her, and then the truth came out. :

“Father, we had our last words as overs ;
that is very true. But we have not named
another day, and William has gone.”

“Gone ?” said the farmer, draining his cup,
and helping himself to another slice of bread
and butter. ‘Give me some more tea, child
Where has he gone to?”

“To America !”

“ What ?”

His sudden start frightened her so that she
dropped the tea-pot, and scalded her hand
terribly.

“Now, see what you have done, you silly
little puss. It serves you right for trying to
play tricks on your poor old father. Does it”
smart badly? Run and get some ecotton-wool,
and wrap it up. Ican make the tea myself.”

“Oh!” burst out Kitty, “I don’t mind the
hand, father. I deserve to be scalded worse
than that! Iam a wicked, ungrateful girl, and
when you hear all, I do believe you will turn
me out of the house!” :

“ Bless me, child! what are you talking about?
One would think you had gone mad!” he ex-
claimed, pushing back his chair, and lookin
intently at her. For the first time he notice
her paleness, her restless air, her tear-stained
eyes, and a suspicion of the truth seemed to
flash over his mind as he gazed.

“Heyday, miss!’ he exclaimed, sharply.

 
22

«“ What is all thisabout? You have been doing
something wrong. What is it? Out with
Ade?

Never before had he spoken to her in such a
tone, and the poor child was frightened half out
of her wits, and eould only gasp piteously :
“William! Don’t be angry father—don’t scold
me!”

“ William ! what has he to do with it ? Now,
don’t tell me you have been giving him a heart-
ache, or I shail be tempted vo box your ears.
Lave you quarreled ?”

“ Worse than that, father!” she said desper-
ately, bursting into tears as she spoke.

“ Worse !”

“The old man turned pale.

“ Kitty, you didn’t—you couldn’t mean, that
he has really gone?”

“To America! Oh dear! Yes, father!”

“ And you have driven him away, miss? Oh,
I sce it al) now! Give me my hat and stick.”

“What are you going to do, father? William
is many « mile away by this time.”

“ More shame to you, that you have to tell
me so! But I'm not going after William.
Poor fellow! I love him like my own son, but he
is far too good for a silly, flirting litile thing
like you, and I hope he will marry out in
America, and never think of you again. No, I
won t ask him to come back to a girl who has
used him so; but I’ll do something else.” And
he put on his hat, grasped his stick, and whistled
to his dog in a very significant way.

“Father! O father! where are you going ”
cried Kitty, getting between him and the door,
in an agony of fear.

“Tam going to see the man who has made all
this mischief. Yes; you may well blush and
hang down your head. You know, as well as I,
that you were willing enough to marry William
till this popinjay of a London writer eame down
here and turned your foolish brain. A eox-
comb, who will never think of you twice, after
he gets back among his town frievds ; and yet
you have gone and broken a good man’s heart
for his sake! However, I'll have none of his
Bpeeins here. Now that he has gained

his end, he shall just take himself back to the

eity again, or I will know the reason of his

staying. Open the door.”
“Father dear, what will Mr. Oliver think, if

you go to him like this ?”

“J don’t care what he thinks.”

“Oh, yes you do—you care what he thinks of
your poor little Kitty! If you go to him on
such an errand, be will say to himself that you
are trying to frighten him into marrying me,
You know he will. And then he will despise
me, and I shall die.”

“Nonsense, child! I tell you I won't have
him come bere any more to fill your head with
nonsense. If I had not been as blind as an old
beetle, I should have seen it all from the first.

THE REJECTED WIFE; OR,

Yet, who on earth could have expected a young
woman, with a sweetheart of her own, to go and
fall in love with a perfect stranger, in a week’s
time. I'mashamed of you Kitty ; that is a fact.”

“I kiow I have done wrong, very wrong:
but, oh! father, don’t go to him. I could not
bear that! I think it would really kill me—
indeed I feel as if I was dying now!

As she spoke, she turned very pale ; her eyet
closed, and she would have fallen to the ground |
if he had not caught her in his arms. Over-
whelmed with contrition for his harshness, hé
placed her in a chair, and held a glass of water —
to her lips, promising all and everything she |
asked, if she would but look at him—smile om |
him onee again. ;

Kitty heard the frantic words as she recov- —
ered from that death-like swoon; took the ad- |
vantage which her illness gave her, and never
let it go.

“T am better now,” she said, putting the
water away.
so angry, that made me faint. But you have
promised, father—remember that.”

“ Yes, child, I will remember. Are you sure
you are better?”

“ Quite sure. And you will not say any- |-
thing to Mr. Oliver, even if he happens to come |
here ?” *

“‘No—at least—Kitty, you must promise me
that you will not let this man make love tv

ou.”

‘“‘ He never does, father.”

And the color came stealing back into her.
cheek again, like the tint of a young moss-rose- —

“ And you must only see him when your aunt
is with you.”

“Very well, father.”

There was a short silence.
looked perplexed and puzzled.

“Child, [ wish your mother had lived,” be
said, at last, laying his hand fondly on her dark
hair. “ You are growing very like her; you
are far too’ pretty to be left alone; and I de
not know how to guide you as she would. Re-
member your mother, and your mother’s God;
my dear; that is the best advice I can give you.
And don’t break my heart, Kitty, in my ol
age; don’t let me have to meet her in heave?
and tell her that her only child—her darling
child—has done anything wrong !” 1

His voice trembled, his eyes were filled with
tears, and he snatched up his hat, and left the

The old map

house without another word. Kitty sat wateb- |

ing him as he went down the narrow gardeD-
path ; and then her thoughts turned, with fon
relief, toward the beloved one, who, throug:
her intercession, was safe from all blame and re
buke. What did it matter how much she might
have to bear, so he was unmolested—what wer
all the unkind words and bitter reproaches, 8¢
they did not fall upon his ear!

She went about her daily work, no long

 

“You spoke so loud and looked |
   

Singing, it is true, but with a heart that was
once morevat ease. The momentary strain of
Suspense was over; the worst was known and—
what was more—forgiven! She was free to act
_ for herself—free to be happy, if she could, and
in her own way. And even Aunt Betsy, com-

ing in later in the day, with words of wonder-

ing condolence, and the news of William Hill’s
departure, found herself checked and silenced,
 8he scarcely knew how, bysomething in Kitty’s
face, and voice, and manner, that she had never
seen before.

The news traveled fast, as news of that de-
Scription always must; and long before night-
fall, every one was aware that the lovers had

uareled and parted, and that ‘“ the gentleman

om Lon’on” was at the bottom of it all.
“The gentleman” heard it also, by chance, from
& lounger in the tap-room, and the rustic pub-
 lictity annoyed him to such an extent, that he
ordered a fly, packed up his valise, and made
as hurried a retreat from the Forest as Miss
Marchmont had done a few days before. To
Stay and be talked over by those small farmers
and the village girls—oh, it was intolerable!
And that night he slept at Lyndhurst, in the best
bedroom of an inn famous for its hunting din-
hers in the sporting days of old; but now fast
falling into loneliness and decay. Kitty knew
Nothing of this, when, after the day’s work was
at an end, she strolled out through the little
Side gate and into the Forest Road. She walk-
ed there for an hour, as the sun was going
down ; her face growing sadder, her eyes more
Wistful in their glances as every moment fleeted
by. She had half fancied she should come
Upon Mr. Oliver, walking or ridiag in his favor-
‘te haunts. The poor child had so much to
Say to him!

 

  
  
 
   

*

CHAPTER VIL

“But when I saw that gentle eye,
Oh! something seemed to tel¥ me ther,

That I was yet too young to die,
And hope and bliss might bloom again !

“* With every beamy smile that cross’d
Your kindling cheek, you lighted home

q Some feeling which my heart had lost,
And peace which long had learned to roam.”
'y —Moore.
z Poor Kitty waited that evening by the Forest
Yoad, in vain—no Mr. Oliver came in sight.
b Only the squirrels chattered, and the cattle
é | lowed, and the small birds sang and called to
- | ach other from tree to tree. Restless and un-
a appy, she turned once more toward her home,
d and coming out into the high read, paused be-
bh Side the very stile against which William Hill
‘ leaned while bidding her his last silent good-
ve ye. Did any hovering spirit—any subtle in-
; uence in the air reveal the fact to her? I

: hink not. She glanced down at the initials,
“W.H. K. A.”, cut in the mossy wood, and
Tamed in a true-lover’s knot. She sighed as

 

 

A BROKEN LIFE. 23

she saw them, it is true, but she little dreamed

whose tears had moistened them only twelve —

hours before, as she took the old familiar seat
and gazed anxiously down toward her present
world, the ‘ Bell” iv Brook.

“Why don't he come?” the sick little heart
was saying over and over again. “Oh, if he
only knew how much I want to see him! [
feel so sad—every one has been so unkind all
day—and it is all so wretebed. Yetif he would
but come by for an instant and give me a kind
word, or a pleasant smile, how different it would
all be! I wonder what he is doing. Reading,
perhaps, or writing in that new book of his.
How teautiful those parts were that he read to
me, the other evening! How nice it must be to
be able to write such things!. O me! I wish
I was clever ; and then, perhaps, he would like
me alittle better than he does now. But I’m
not! I’m only a simple, ignorant, little thing,
scarcely fit to be his servant; and yet here I sit,
expecting him to come to me, as if I was a born
lady, and his equal, like Miss Marchmont. She
is his equal; she isrich; she is clever; and I
dare say poor William was right when he fan-
cied that she was fond of him. Who would not
be? He is so handsome, so kivd, so good;
just like the people one reads of in novels.
And yet not too proud ¢o speak to a little girl
like me, not too proud to eall me ‘ dear Kitty’,
to hold my hand—to—. Oh, why did he do it,
if he did not eare enough for me to meet me
here to-night?’

She burst into a fit of passionate tears, ley-
ing her head down upon those rude carved let-
ters, but not as William had done. She wid
not kiss them over and over again. At that
moment she had quite forgotten that they were
there.

And so the twilight faded, and the first stars.

came twinkling out in the deep-blue sky, and
Kitty went sadly home. How softly the moou
rose from behind the hills, how calmly she
floated up through the Milky May !
she cared if tearful or smiling eyes were wateh-
ing ler stately progress all the while.. Surely
this sublime indifference of Nature to our bit-
terest woes, is one of the things that makes
them even bitterer still. :

A week passed by. A sad little note, post-
marked Liverpool, and written on board an
American liner, gave to Kitty poor Wiliiam’s

7.

How little ”

last good wishes and farewell; but still Mr. |

Oliver made uno sign.
left the village; but news travels but slowly in
the Forest, and not till the next market-day did
she hear more. Then some neighboring far-
mer, dropping in at niyhtfall to talk with ber
father about the price of corn and the risin

value of pigs, geese, and turkeys, Jet out, as if
by accident, the fact of his having seen the
“Lon’on gentleman” in Lyndhurst the day be-
fore, riding with one of the daughters of the

She knew that he had —

 

 
24

lord of the manor, out toward the Forest, to see
the hounds throw off.

There was a short silence after the communi-
cation; theu the two men went on talking, and
Kitty, watching her chance, wrapped herself in
her gray mantle, stole silently out at the cot-
tage-door, and went down the garden-path
alone. Coming to her favorite meadow stile,
she sat down upon it, hid her face in her hands,
and tried to collect her scattered senses after
the sudden blow she had received.

Mr. Oliver, then, was not in London! Ur-
gent business had not called him back to town,
as she liad fondly hoped. He was at Lyndhurst,
only a few miles away, and yet for a week he
had neither seen nor written to her. He had
gone without bidding her good-bye: he might,
possibly, have no intention of meeting her
again, while they two should live. And life —
life was so long! What would it be to her
without his smile, his love, to make it pleas-
ant? It was a dreary look-out for Kitty, in the
first flush of her opening existence.

I know as weil as you, dear reader, that she
was quite in the wrong. She ought not to have
given her heart unasked; and least of all
ought she to have given it to a man whose sta-
tion was so far above her own, and to whom a,
woman’s love was by no means so sacred a
thing as it should have been. She should have
been constant to the young farmer, who was
worth a hundred Francis Olivers, had she but
known it! But ah me! whoin this world of
ours does, habitually and continually, what
they onght to do? Little Kitty turned from
the draught of generous wine, brimming at her
very lips, and hankered after the grapes hang-

‘ing far out of reach, it is true! Is it more than
you and I have done, in the course of our lives
—more than, perhaps, we are doing now at this
very moment? Cupid is the most uncertain,
the most wrong-headed potentate in the uni-
verse ; always shooting his arrows on the right

and, when he ought to be taking aim on the
left; sure to be found in the palace, when he
should have taken refuge in the peasant’s cot.
It was but one of his usual vagaries this
balking of the simplest happiness—this set-
ting every one in the farmer’s cottage by the
ears.

Kitty, lingering at the stile as the moon rose
and the chill winds went down, kept on that anx-
ious, useless searching into cause and effect with
which a loving nature like hers is sure to tor-
ture itself at such a fime.
the same position, would have looked the diffi-
culty straight in the face—would have fought
against it for an instant, and then, snapping her
fingers with a stolid ‘‘ What is to be must be”,
would have gone off to console herself with
some excitement, easily procurable in the gay
city life she lived. But Kitty, simple, loving,
little child—could only plaint and murmur like

Miss Marchmont, in |

THE REJECTED WIFE; OR,

a wounded dove, feeling her hurt, and her utter

loneliness, and unable to imagine any remedy

for it except the grand one—Death! And so

she went on, woncering if she had said or done

anything to offend Mr. Oliver during their last

interview ; if he would marry the lady at Lynd-

hurst (a bright, beautiful, young creature, whom
she knew well by sight) ; if he would ever think
of Brook and the cottage—and—and her: and
here the tears, that had been flowing silently,
came faster ; and bending her head down rpox
her folded arms, she burst into an agony ©

weeping.

A figure, which had been lingering for a few
moments at the turn of the road, now advanced.
A voice, which she knew only too well, calle
her by her name. She started up with a wild
ery of joy, and saw Francis Oliver standing be
side her. If he had planned a cold and quiet
meeting—if he had thought often to himeels,
during those days of absence, that le ought t¢
look upon Kitty merely as a pleasant little
friend, and tell her so, all such ideas and ger
ples vanished the instant he saw that lovely {ace
beaming brightly through its tears. Haw it
happened, he could not have told, but he held
her the next instant in his arms-—was kissiD8
her lips, her cheeks, her hair, and calling be
by a thousand pet names, as ehe solbed upoe
his breast. After that, there was no retrcatmg:
Acting on the impulse of the moment, he 1a
plunged headlong into the stream. Now he pad
only to let the rapid current bear him where i
would. There was a sort of desperate plearut®
in the thought that he was no Jenger a jee
agent—no longer able individually to conti
with honor the moviments of his future life.

Kitty, blushing like a rose, freed herself at
last from his embrace, without daring to lock UP
at him. q

“O Mr. Oliver, what must you think of mé ?
she murmured.

“What can I think but one thirng—that Kit |
was very glad to see me,” was his kind reply:
“Two things, I ought to say; for] was eqra!
glad to see Kitty. Have you thorght of 2¢
little one, as often as I have thovght of yt
during this weary week ?”

“T have thought of you every day and all
day long,” was her simple reply. “Et 1 0
afraid you had forgotten me. Tht wah why
cried.”

“Simple little girl! Did you think it ™#
peer for me to forget you? Did ycu not on
efore I went away how dear you were g10wi g°
“You went without saying gocd-Lye,” *

whispered.

“That was wrong, I grant.
back. 2
you not, my love ?”

She raised her radiant face. Forgive !
was the sin she could not overlook and
in him ?

But I have ecm
You can forgive that one little ein— ¢

wiel
forgiv®

 
 

“J went,” he continued, “ because I fancied
it was best for both of us. You were engaged
— to a good and Kind-hearted man; and when I
} heard that he bad gone, I thought that I might
| have been doing wrong. That the facet of your
having known me might have influenced vou
— more than it ought. In my decision, was I very
Vain, my love?”
“No,” she answered, quietly.
It never occurred to her to deny or hide her
i love for him.
“J went away at once. I knew that some
; days must pass before he Jeft England, and that
f | in the meantime you might, if you chose, ask
| him to come back. I did not come to say good-
bye, because I dared not trust myself in your
| presence, and because I knew that the surest
_ Way to make you care for him again, and forget
Me, was to seem indifferent while he was so
heart-broken. I went to Lyndhurst. I could
‘Rot put myself quite out of your reach, you
See; and when I heard that his vessel had really
- | sailed, 1 came back to say what I say now—
Kitty, Tlove you! Will you be my wife ?”
Was she dreaming? No. He stood before
er speaking gravely and earnestly, as a man

  

 

 

 

g should speak when he asks that question, and
| Waiting for her answer (she thought) as anxious-
BX ly as if she bad been the first lady in the land,

Instead of a simple cottage-girl.
af “Oh!” she sighed, “nothing could make me
a 80 happy—nothing! But, Mr. Oliver, are you

 

it y Sure you Jove me well enough for that? There

re | are many Jadies—born ladies—who are educated,
4 |} and aceomplished, and beautiful, who would be

% } glad and proud to marry you.”

|} . He smiled a superior, self-satisfied smile,

| Whether Kitty was rigbt or not, he evidently

_ Aad but one opinion about the matter.

} “Well, my wid rose, what then ?”

“There was that lady whom we met in the

orest.””

Mis face darkened suddenly.

“What of her?”

“She would suit you far better than I.”

He bit his lip, tut auswered gayly :

“T hope you dunt mean for a moment to

|} ompare this pretty little face with Miss Mareh-
~Nont’'s? Why, she is positively ugly ?”

Kitty gave a sigh of relict. She was not
Yery deeply versed in such matters—the odic
°rce would have been a heathenish mystery to
Her; and she never deemed for an instant that
Was possible for a man to regard a woman
With too favorable an eye after he had pro-
ouneed that fearful verdict against her:

ositively ugly!’ Her heart was set at rest
‘bout Niiss Marchmont from that moment.

“And the Jady at Lyndhurst—the lady you
Tode out with ?” she said, timidly.

I “Al! some one bas been telling tales of me,

See,” he replicd, laughing. ‘“ My love, she is
the daughter of a very old friend of mine—a

 
  

  
   
  
   
    
   
    
   
  
  

i
FS

 
 
    
   
   
 

Pt

A BROKEN LIFE.

   

25
mere school-gir?, in fact. You need not be
jealous of her.” \

He did not think it necessary to add that the
“mere school-girl” was already engaged to a
cornet in the Guards, and so wrapped up in
thoughts of him, that she evidently searcely
knew if Mr. Oliver was by her side or. not.
“ Truth should be spoken on all occasions,” was
his motto. Sometimes, as in this ease, he add-
ed a little saving clause, which ran thus: “ But
all the truth need not always be told.”

Kitty smiled gladly.

“Tam not jealous, Mr. Oliver; only a little
fearful. You are quite sure I am not too igno-
rant for you?”

“ Quite sure, my love.”

“Certain that you will not tire of me; cer-
tain that you will never wish you had married
some one else—some one more worthy of
you?”

He smiled, and smoothed the dark hair away
from the loving, earnest face.

“ Let this kiss answer, my child.”

“Oh! not one of them would love you as I
do,” she cried. “I will serve you; 1 will be
faithful to you ; I will live for you alone, and if
you tell me to go and die, I will do it, Mr. Oli-
ver! I will make you happy. I know I
can—”

Her tears finished the broken sentence ; and,
leaning her head against his arm, she let them
flow freely. Hestood supporting her in silence ;
his gaze wandered from her face over the quiet
landscape, and then up to the calm night sky.
He could not feel what Kitty felt—the eestatic
happiness of a first love revealed, and appar-
ently returned—but he felt grateful and at rest.
Her spirit stood upon the bright mountain-tops
of youth and love, and bathed in the glad sun-
shine with exultant joy ; he lingered far down
in the shaded valley, but some chastened reflee-
tion of the light and glory fell around him even
there! Life has so many different phases, so
many very different moods! The gift-horse,
whieh we look in the mouth at twenty, comes
before us like a godsend at eight-and-thirty.
We start so freshly, so exultantly, on our jour-.
ney that we are somewhat unreasonable in our —
demands ; the best and brightest of everything
alone will content us. But when day after day
passes on, and the forced mareh is still kept up,
and weary and footsore though we may be, we
know that the tent of respose can never be
pitched till we lie down in it to rise no more ;
at that stage we grow more humble, and take
the goods the gods provide us, with thankful
resignation. Instead of grumbling over our

wreched fate, we say, meekly : “Thank Heay-
en it is no worse!” and so toil on to the end.
To this point Francis Oliver had now arrived.
The world was no longer “all before him, where
to choose” ; there were three or four gray hairs
in his right whisker, and incipient “ crows’ fect

  

 
26

tracking the corners of his fine dark eyes.
More than once had he received a flying visit
from that dreaded enemy, the gout. te could
no longer walk twenty uiiles at a time without
fatigue ; and if he rode atter the hounds, he
found himself selecting convenient lanes, and dry
ditches, and gaps in the hedges on his onward
way, instead of taking five-barred gates and
sunk fences, as he used-to doin his earlier years.
He had outgrown the fascinations of theatres,
operas, and ballets ; he cared little for concerts
where his own peculiar favorites did not ap-
pear ; the club was getting to be a dreary lounge,
and his bachelor apartments were ten degrees
worse. Then, too, his dancing days were
over, and he had never been fond of whist ;
young ladies “ just out” seemed little interested
in his literary gossip, especially if any empty
headed guardsman of twenty-five hovered in
the distance; his gay bachelor friends had all
settled down into sober married men, and their
wives looked somewhat coldly upon him; in
short, he had outlived his own peculiar associa-
tions, ties, and intimacies, and must either set
about creating new ones, or become a lonely,
discontented, and disappointed man.

Here was the last turning-point in his exist-
ence. He had sense enough to recognize it, and
to feel grateful that it was so pleasant a one.
‘This was not the wife he would have chosen
once—not the wife he would have chosen now,
perhaps, if he had not made that fatal blunder
about Miss Marchmont at Stoney Cross. But,
at all events, putting Miss Marehmont out of
the question, here was a good, innocent, pretty,
young girl, pure as a lily, fresh as a rose, who
loved him for himself alone—who would make
his home happy, share his sorrows, and double
his joys—who would look upon her husband as
the greatest and best of men—who would be a
pleasant and faithful companion to him for
many a year, and a kind and tender nurse when
he needed one. If fortune frowned upon him,
Kitty still would smile; if the fickle public
wearied of him, she would still be true; if other
writers, greater than he, rose up in his place
and jostled him from the broad highway of fame
and public usefulness into narrow by-paths of
literary drudgery, Kitty would never know, or,
if she knew, would never believe that the fault
was his, and the merit theirs. There was some-
tlring in this reverent faith of hers in him and
his talents that attracted him even more than
her beauty, her grace, her youth. To have one
disciple who would believe in him implicitly, no
matter what doctrines he might teach—one sub-
ject who would obey her ruler loyally, and with-
out a thought of rebellion—one friend who
would trust him unreservedly, no matter what
his shorteomings might be ; this was what he
wanted ; this was what he had found! And he

drew the little graceful head closer to his breast,
and kissed the open brow, with an inward reso-

THE REJECTED WIFE; OR,

lution to prize his treasure according to its
worth—to brighten forever, by his Jaithful Jove,
the life that had so unselfishly merged  iteelt in
his own!

They entered the cottage together just as the
farmer was coming to the door in scxich of bis.
daughter... lie cyed them grimly is they stood
In tue Lumble liutie room, Land clasping land,
smile auswering smile.

“Humph!” he said, at last. “I svj pore I
see it all. What may your errand be lie, Mr.
Oliver ?”

“To ask you to confirm what your dang).ter
has just said,” replied Mr. Oliver, with ccurte
ous cause. To ask you to give me Kitty jor my
wife.”

“You can take her, sir,’ said the old man,
bitterly. “ When is it to be?”

“At onece—next week—if you do not ob-
ject.”

Kitty looked dismayed. The day had not

been named Lefore, and the suddenices of the
proposition almost took away ler Lreath.
“The svoncr the Letter, sir,” was the Jar:
“ And now say goou-night to her,
\

mers reply.
if you please.”

There was no withstanding bim in tlat curt
mood, and Mr. Oliver obeyed. No socner } ad
the door closed upon him, than Kitty wee ecat
to bed without ler father’s usual hie are Lices-
ing. He was cvidently deeply lvat tid ais
pleased atthe turn the afiair laa tehen, Yet
she dared utter 10 woid of exerge ether for Ler
lover or herself. , 5

The weck j assed by all too quickly; 214 cD
the following Mouday the chuich wis acnced
with the villaye people ;
presence of all who lad known sro Jovco leat

and Kitty, 32 the,

7

from her infancy, gave her laud where Jet |

heart had Leen lestowed, and Jeft the lurud— J

Katharine Atherton no jeonger. fhe wie to
start at once upon her lridal tour, a1d wer te
say farewell to her friends then ena thae, im
stead of returning to ler Jather’s Lcvee
bevy of young girls and matrons elcecd 1101
her as she left the clureh pod— tha rhe
flung herself upon her father’s 1eck— kierca Let
aunts—patted the old house-dig kindly, o»
was gone !

The gronp of friends and neigh bas siood
looking after the retreating carriage i £14108
To the young villoge-girls, it was as if a iary
prince had sucdenly appeared and chcecn sis
bride from their yanks; Vut their nolo
shook their heads and sighed when 1h. aike
of the bridegroom, and turned to look «fier 12
poor old farmer and his dog going slowly across
the fields toward home.

’

 

ey tig. eae ag bp Pee oa

e °
tia oe Ve as a ee a ee

‘an bl te pan? ee” Me perk eee 6
 

CHAPTER VIII.
“ Couldst thou look as dear as when
First I sighed for thee ;
Couldst thou make me feel again
Every wish I breathed thee then, ©
Oh, how blissful life would be !
Hopes, that now beguiling leave me,
Joys, that lie in slumber cold—
All would wake, if thou couldst give me,
One dear smile like those of old.”
—Moorz,
Miss Marchmont, like the rich man of old,
had “ many possessions”. They did not exact-
ly take the patriarchal form of “flocks and
herds”, it is true ; but she had a house in town,
a seat in the country, some warehouses in Man-
chester, and the fourth part of an export busi-
ness in Liverpool, figuring upon her rent-roll ;
and the sum she was justified in spending per
annum would have sufficed to support a large
family, had she been blessed with one. There-
fore, it was not strange if, when a whim seized
upon her, she made haste, out of her full purse,
to gratify it. She was continually buying
something or other ; now a horse—now a pic-
ture—now a set of splendidly-bound books.

Her latest purchase had been made after read-

ing the history of the little dairy village which
@ queen of France once amused herself with
uilding—the village where she and her maids
of honor tripped about in little wooden clogs,
and made butter, and gave the king and his
courtiers draughts of milk from real wooden
Pails. Miss Marchmont laughed at the picture
at first, itis true; but it seemed to haunt her ;
and since she could not have a whole viliage to
herself, she determined to have a house. Not
-4n clegant couniry-seat, where her fashionable
friends, devoured by ennni, might come and wear
away an hour or two, and yawn over Nature’s
calmest beauties—as a certain duke at Twick-
{| €nham once yawned over the unreasonable
| ‘Thames, which “will keep running and run-

_ Ning for ever, and I so weary of it!” No—her
fashionable friends might visit her at March
Hiil as often as they liked; but into her new

ome they should never intrude. It should be
at a very short distance from town, so that she
Might go to and fro as she liked. It should be
perfectly rural; it should have a little garden,
a little “vine and fig tree’, a stable for her

orse, a kennel for her dog, a study for herself,
and it should be called “ The Growlery”.

She set out on her travels one windy after-
Noon, and, at a distance of six miles from Lon-
don, found the very thing she sought—a little
two-story, square-fronted brick cottage, not

 

  
 

P ‘Standing in its own grounds, and secured frony
the gaze of curious pedestrians by high walls
that inclosed the whole place. The rooms weré
§mall, but light and convenient ; they were fur-
Nished nicely, and the place could be taken at
nee, if she liked. Miss Marchmont was always
- brompt in her movements. She went through

4

 

A BROKEN LIFE.

More than five minutes’ walk from the station,

27

the house, examined the furniture, looked over
the stable, walked up and down the lawn once or
twice, and then went straight tu the agent's office,
where she signed an agreement which gave her
the sole use and enjoyment of the premises for
one year. The next afternoon she came again
with a quantity of baggage, her housekeeper,
and one or two old servants ; and by the end
of the week, “ The Growlery” was in full oeeu-
pation, and she as contented inher little rooma |
as if she had lived there all her life.

Not one of her London acquaintances pos-
sessed the clue to her retreat. Hach evening
found her at ball, theatre, or opera, as usual ;
but the long and pleasant day was spent in her
suburban home—spent in writing, in reading,
in country walks, or riles with her bay mare,
“Fanny”, and her Newfoundland, “ Fred”. The

healthful exercise, the perfect rest and quiet,

and sweet, fresh air did her a world of good.
She dropped all her burdens when the gate of
“The Growlery” closed upon her, and only re-
sumed them when she lgft her home onee more. -
Even the old wound was well-nigh healed (at
least she fancied so), and she ceased to busy
herself with conjectures as to the movements of
Francis Oliver, and tried her best to put away
those harsh and bitter thoughts of him which
had made her whole life, in one sense, an utter
blank. He had not treated her kindly —no
matter, she could forgive him now! Years ago,
when they first met, he bad paid her marked
attention, had seemed almost to love her—had
drawn back suddenly and left her without the
slightest explanation. She had borne if in si-
lenee. What woman likes to talk of slights en-
dured, of affection given only to be betrayed ?
What pity has the world for misfortunes like
these ?

Miss Marchmont had been wise enough to
hold her tongue, and drink the bitter draught
held to her lips with all due outward propriety.
How the pierced heart raged and bled beneath
that vail of decorous ealm, it is not for me to
say ; suffice it, that the struggle was over, and
that none except God and herself knew that it
had been. And now, among the gentle influ-
ences of her changed life, the “stirrings and
searcbings” of the old wound grew fainier, and
seemed at last to die entirely away.

She sat before the piano one Sabbath morn |
ing, looking out into the garden as she played a
hymn in a minor key—a melancholy, wailing
thing, and yet she loved it. It was a master-
hand that touched the instrument, and it gave
forth its sweetest melody, as if in thanks. By-
and-by, all was silent.

Her Newfoundland came up the garden path, —
and stool outside the parlor window, lookin
at his mistress with wagging tail and half-
laughing, open mouth. She did not refuse the
mute invitation to a walk, but went down the

 

 

 
   

  

28

steps, and allowed him to escort her across the

lawn and back again. The dog turned off at
last, and went snuffing aud spying about the
hedge that divided her grounds from those of
her neighbor. Presently he uttered a low
growl. Miss Marchmont went to see what had
displeased him, and came upon a scene that
transfixed her with astonishment.

Within those grounds, and plainly visible
through the leafless hedge, a lady and gentle-
man were walking. The lady wore a black
moiré antique dress, a velvet e’¢ ak, end a white
silk bonnet decked with snowy plumes. The
gentleman was dressed in black, and earried a
sinall lacquered cane that looked strangely famil-
iar to Miss Marechmont’s eyes. When she firs:
saw them, their backs were toward her—pres-
ently they turned, and she uttered a faint cx”
clamation, and staggered back as if she had re-

-eeived a blow. She watehed them go down the
broad walk arm-in-arm, beard the gate close
behind them, and knew that they were going to
chureh ; for the last bell had already begun to
ring.

She stood listening for a moment till the
faintest echo of their steps and voices had died

-away ; then sank down upon a little garden
seat, clasped her hands around the neck of the
dog, who was looking up in her face and whin.
ing, and Jaid her aching head on his.

She needed to think—she needed a moment’s
rest. For she had looked once more on Fran-
cis Oliver’s face, and it needed no words to tell
her that it was his bride who leaned upon his
arm !

CHAPTER IX.
“Oh, there’s notbing left me now

But to mourn the past!

Vain was every ardent vow—

Never yet did Heaven allow
Love so warm, so wild, to last,

Not even hope could now deceive me,
Life itself looks dark and cold :

Oh, thou never more canst give me
One dear smile like those of old !”

—Moorg.

So much for battles fought—for fancied vic-
tories won! At the first unexpected sight of
the man she had once loved, this woman phi-
losopher threw down lance and shield, and
owned herself vanquished !

Had she met him in any other way, her
weakness would not have been so plainly mani-
fested to herself. To have seen him in those

ay social circles, to which they both of right
‘belonged, would have been as nothing. There
no one would have had a greater claim upon
him—no one could have hoasted a closer inti-
macy with him than herself. But this vision
of his hidden happiness—this glimpse of his
domestic peace, wounded her cruelly. The
sight of that gentle, pretty girl, who had a
right to lean upon his arm and look up so
fondly into his face, was bitter for a time. * * *

THE REJECTED WIFE; OR,

The chureh-bells ecased to ring. She dashed
the tears from her cyes impatiently. It seemed
to her a childish thing to sit and weep over
what was past recalling. She had no patience
with the weakness which she could not at that
instant conquer.

It was tie old story—the old railway verdict
of “*Nobody to blame”. There ha! been no
positive word of love spoken, no real engage-
mené made. They had separated in America,
and when they met onee more in Engiand, the
lady was too proud to encourage a hesitating
lover, the gentieman too shy to make advances
to a belle, an heiress, a suecessful authoress,
when he had seemed to slight and forget the
timid girl of sixteen. ‘Ihey met often in ~
society, but only as © people in society” meet.
Each thought of the other, eared for the other
more than they would have dared to own, but
still the iee was unbroken—still the cordial
word withheld. Never had they come so near —
the old familiar days as when they shook hands
beneath the New Forest oaks. It was possinle,
then, to revive the long-buried love, and to
renew the broken dream. Jad faté been kinder,
how much of pain, of wexriness, of restless,
dissatisfied longing might have been spared
those two long-severed hearts! A word, a
look, would lave told them «all in time; bub

the hour went by, and all was lost!
* * *

* * * *

The morning passed away, and footsteps and
voices in the road beyond the garden wa Is
showed that people were returning from chureh,
Miss Mare!;mont rose from her seat, and patted
her dog's head.

“Well, Master Frederick,” she said, half jest-
ingly, half bitterly, “accidents will happen in
the best regulated families, and if we chanee to
get our fingers pinched as the world gocs |
round, ’tis little use erying out. What isto be,
must be! ‘Tis a broken life, in good trath, my
Fred, and we must even pick up the pieces an
pateh them together as best we enn.”

She went into the house. Her early dinner.
was just ready ; she sat down and ate far toa
heartily for a heroine. Then, ordering the ear-
riage, she drove back to her house in town.
She was determined to put an end to all senti-
mental remembrances by a course of hard
study and hard work. She could not have
made a more sensible resolution at that partie-
ular time!

For two days Miss Marehmont wrote very
steadily in her London home. On the third
evening she pushed aside her desk and papers
soon after tea, yawned, and muttering that she
did not see any need of making a Carmelite
nun of herself, even if Mr. Oliver was married,
went up stairs to dress. Presently she came

down, looking her very best, ordered the ear
riage, and was driven to Madame G—— 5s
where the usual Wednesday soirée, for birds of

 
 

¢ Miss Marchmont’s feather, was held. The
—Tooms were quite full when she entered, and
- she was greeted with a chorus of exclamations
and’rejeicings from her most intimate acquaint-
‘| ances, who were herding together according to
their wont, in the first vacant corner they
} could find, and Jaunching witticisms and eriti-
cisms at and upon every one who passed. Miss
— Marehmont joined them gladly. The spari-
ing conversation, the witty jests were such a
| Velief, after the enforced solitude of the last
| Week,
“ What an idiot I was,” she thought to her-
Self, “to shut myself up, even for one single
day, for the sake of any man on earth! I have
oved and I have lost, it is true. Now many
of these gigglers around me have done the
| 8ame, and yet see how they enjoy themselves !
The wine of life is not quite at its dregs while
ean come here and laugh as heartily as I have
- done to-night. The past—bah! a sickly dream
a pale ray of moonlight. Let it go, and I
Will take the joyous, rollicking present to my
| heart, and be merry while [ may. This is what
, want—gay spirits around me, warm hands to
Mees my own—and love—love ‘may go to
Mong Kong for me’, as the old song says.
Come—I am certainly growing young once
More !”
3 . As she concluded this inward pean of re-
 joicing, she looked across the room, and saw
‘rancis Oliver, sitting much at his case beside
4 well-known authoress, listening and laughing
| While she defended with ber usual zeal an absurd
theory about the “lost tribes” with which she
5 had become bitten daring the course of an
astern tour. Miss Marehmont started and
| Solored violently, it is true, but recovered her
| Composure in an amazingly short time, all
| things considered. The knowledge of Mr.
| Oliver's marriage had gone further to cure her
} °f her life-long passion, than even she herself
Was aware of. Without looking at the question
tom a moral point of view, there is not, after
| ll, much sentiment or romance in loving a
Married man. He may have been more hay eh
Attached to you than to his wife—he may find
t extremely difficult to forget you, but still she
@8 an advantage over you which tells wonder-
lly in the long run. It is from her, not from
You, that all his comforts and indulgences must
Some. Jt is her hand, not yours, that must
, keep the hearth bright, and the home tidy; it
48 her gentleness that must soothe—her kind-
Ress that must console him. She is with him
_ %y day and by night, while you sit afar off—a
| Pale shadow beside a fair substance of flesh
} nd blood. Is it wonderful that in time he
Should reward her patient love and faithful
nderness by giving her a closer, warmer place
his heart than you held, even when he loved
You most! I think not—and surely no woman
‘An complain at seeing such justice done. But

 

 

 

A BROKEN LIFE. : 29

«

at the same time the almost certain knowledg=
that this must be so, goes very far to coo! 2»
affection in many a heart, that would be guilty,
if encouraged, and does much to keep the
balance of right and wrong more evenly adjust-
ed in this blundering world than they would
otherwise be.

Miss Marchmont thought of all these things
while she stood looking for a few moments at
her first Jove’s face. Then she took a sudden
resolution ; she walked across the room, looked
straight into his eyes witha pleasant smile, and
held out her hand. Mr. Oliver, who had not
expected to see her there, was fairly taken by
surprise for an instant, and colored like a girl.
Ile rose, shook hands with her, fired a parting
shot at his antagonist and her ten tribes, and
then offered his arm to Miss Marchmont. They
went through the next room, and took refuge in
a small boudoir well known to the frequenters of
Madame G ’s sources.

“Who would have thought of seeing you
here ?” he said, as he gave her a seat upon a
téte-a-téte cuir, and placed himself opposite.

“Why should I not come ?” she asked.

“ Oh, they told me you had retired from the
world—turned Trappist, or something of that
kind!” .

“Tt looks like it, certainly,” she replied,
glancing down at her evening dress. “I have
been hard at work for the last week—that is all.”

“T ought to apologize for not answering the
note you were kind enough to send me from
Stoney Cross,” he said, after a short embar-
rassed silence. ‘I was asleep when it came.
The moment [f read it, I set off for the inn—
but you had gone.”

“Yes,” she said, negligently arranging the
lace upon her dress. *! 1 was called suddenly
back to town. The note was of no consequence
except to you. I hope you were a good boy,
and took the advice I gave you.”

He smiled. }

“T went to Lyndburst soon after.”

“And back to Brook—when?” she answered
brusquely. “ When did you leave Hampshire?”

“T scarcely know—it seems to me a hundred
years since I was there.”

“Indeed! And how did you leave all the
good people?”

“Quite well and happy.”

“ William Hill 2”

“Te has gone to America,”

“Tsee! And Miss Kitty ?”

“She was—that is to say, she is quite well,’*
stammered Mr. Oliver, turning very red be«
neath her penctrating glance.

“ And you—what are you doing ?”

“Not much, just at present.”

“ Where is the new book I have been prom-
ised so long—for a month back, at least?”

He shrugged his shoulders with a comical
smile. ‘

 

 

 

 

 

 
30

“Publishers will do such things ; you know
that as well as I. If they choose to advertise
a thing before it is ready, they must take the
consequences.”

“Do you mean to say if is not yet in the
press?”

“My dear Miss Marchmont, there are not
more than fifty chapters finished, and ’tis to be
a novel in three volumes !”

“But why don’t you go to work ?”

econ tl?

“ What nonsense !”

He sighed.

“Come,” sne said, frankly, “make a clean
breast of it. What ails you?”

“T wish I knew.”

“Shall I tell you?”

“Tf you.can.”

“You are getting lazy.”

4“ Oh {”

“Or else you are getting old.”

“That sounds much more to the purpose.”

“ How old are you, Mr. Oliver?”

“As if you did not know.”

“Upon my word, if I ever knew, I have quite
forgotten. Tell me.” :

“ Thirty-five !”

“You speak it as if it were ninety. Now let
me appeal to your good sense.”

“Don't! LThave not the article—never had.”

“Will you listen? Let me ask you if the

thirty-fifth year of a man’s life is the year in’
which he ought to sit down, fold his hands be-

fore him, and say that his work is done?”

“That depends upon circumstances. If he
ve as tired of his work as I am, I should say yes,
most decidedly.”

“ But why neea you be tired?”

“ What a perfect interrogation point you are
making of yourself this evening !”

“Never mind that. Answer.”

“Well—I am tiyed—because—because I am
tired. hat is all the reason I can give, upon
my honor. I know that the freshness and
ae of life has Sa for ever. I cannut say
now or why. J know that I have no longer
that faith in myself and my work that used to
make it so delightful tome. I cudgel my poor,
tired brains mechanically, it is true, but I seem
to produce nothing. I have not patience to
read anything I write, except in correcting my
proofs, and when a man comes to that pass,
two pennyworth of eord or a mild dose of
prussie acid is the best remedy for his com-
plaint.” \

“ But other people like to reau your stories as
well as ever.”

“ It shows their want of taste.” -

“Oh, you are incorrigible! However, I will
not be too hard upon you ; you are not respon-
sihle for what you say. And I know only too
well from experience that the state of mind
you describe is its own best punishment.”

THE REJECTED WIFE; OR,

“You have felt it, then; this unutterable
disgust, this weariness of everything, and of
yourself aud your own works.most of all?’

“T have, often. And I know of nothing more
horrible. Itis as if a mother should lose faith
in her best-beloved child, and cease to hope for
his future, here and hereafter. I don't know
that there is any remedy for it except time and
patience. Time certainly sets all things right.”

He sighed.

“Yes. It will matter little a hundred years
hence that we have felt this depression, known
these disappointments. Yet, after all, that is
but poor consolation. A hundred years hence,
and our dust will lie quiet enough, but it is
now! now!” he added, kindling up, “that we
want our reward; now, that we want our hap-
piness! When I look round this beuutiful
world, and feel how evidently it was made for @
happy race to dwell upon, and then see the mis-
ery of every kind and deyree that abounds, I
grow sick—positively sick! A ruined world,
they call it! Oh, they mistake! She is fresh
and fair encugh, this Mother Earth of ours. It
is we who are all wrong—we who are ruined!
And we might be so peaceful here !”

“You are a heathen and an earth-worshiper,’
said Miss Marchmont, coolly “I suppose you
will continue so till you die. But, then, I think
your eyes will be opened to the beauty of an
other and a more enduring world than this
where all these yearnings will be satisfied—al.
these heart-pangs stilled.”

“ You believe in such a world, then?”

“Yes; and so do you.”

He did not deny it. He only leaned his head
upon his hand, and sighed with such a look of
utter weariness, that she took pity on him. /

“What can ail you? I saw you happy —
enough, just now, talking with Mrs. LL about
her beloved lost tribes.”

“Oh, yes! That woman refreshes me. So
does any one who hasa hobby. I would give
the world to find one for myself that I could be
content to ride.”

“Make one, then.”

«Tis easier said than done. A hobby-horse
goes always on four legs—faith, energy, enthu-
siasm, and hope. And I’m not able to furnish
one. Ah, how differently I used to talk to you
once. Do you remember—in America?”

“ Yes.”

She answered rather stiffly, and turned her
head away. :

“There was something in the very ar of
those New England mountains that inspired
one with belief in the most ridiculous impossi-
bilities. I could have gone on tilting at wind-
mills all my life, I think, if I had remaine
there. And you were gayer,I think, there,
than you are here,”

“T was sixteen years o1a then, ana now I am
almost thirty,” was the brief reply.

 
1 ; them to touch upon.

A BROKEN LIFE. 3t

“True, true! Ah me, how time flies, and

f how very differently ones life is arranged to

what he tiiuks it will be when he first begins it!”

It was an awkward and dangerous subject for
Miss Marehmont felt. it
go, and mancuvred herself out of the difficulty
with great skill. :

“Happily there is no need for you to senti-

. Mmentalize over bygone days, or sigh over the
way in which your life has been arranged for
you.”

“What do you mean ?” ;

“T know a cottage about five miles from Lon-

_ don Bridge,” she went on, with a mysterious
smile ; “and in that cottage lives a maiden lady
with her housekeeper avd her dog. Next to
that cottage is another called ‘Gan-Eden’—”
Mr. Oliver started and blushed deeply. ‘“ Which
is an Eden, indeed, if one may judge from its
Adam and Eve. Do you want to know the
Maiden lady's name?”

; He did not answer, but sat looking on the
ground, the very picture of confusion,

“Tt is Olive Marechmont. And to-morrow
 &he is going to call on Adamand Eve. And
to-day week she is going t» invite them to din-
her. Good-night, Mr. Oliver.”

She made a sweeping courtesy, and was about
to walk away. But lie sprang up and stood
before her.

“Don’t leave me like that. You have dis-
Covered my secret. Well, 1 own that I am
Married.”

“Many thanks for the confession. You make
& merit of necessity, like the rest of your amia-

le sex, and claim eredit for doing what you
are positively compelled to do. Iam ashamed

Of you, Mr, Oliver.” :

“TI know I have done wrong.
least, to have told you.” ;

“ You ought to have told the public. Iam

- Only one of its humble members. And, in its
hame, I ask you if you have any right to
| Place the woman you love in a false position in
its eyes?’
“T know I have not.” :
“Yheu, why do you keep your marriage se-
cret 2?”
“J was married publicly enough, if that is
all,” he said, bitterly. “Every old farmer—
_ €very little child in the parish came to gape at
— Me on my wedding-day.”
| “So much the better. But you aware that a
Marriage, taking place in an obscure country
Millage, may not . known in London on the
- Same day. Besides, if you are not concealing
the fact of your marriage, why do I find you
ere in the character of a bachelor? Why is
Not your wife with you?” ‘ :
_ He bit his lip, played with his watch-chain a
~ Moment, and then it all came out. \
“Look here, Miss Marchmont. You are a
Woman of sense, and will not accuse me of be-

ought, at

” 5

ing a monster of cruelty, when I say what Jam
going to say. Circumstances, over which J
bad no control, forced this marriage upon me,
Little Kitty loved me dearly. L dont mind
telling you that—and when 1 found thas she
had really given her heart to me,I could not,
as a man of honor, draw back. Besidis, 1
broke no tie—pained no heart by marrying her.
Not a creature on earth loved me betore.”

He was gazing earnestly in ber face as he
spoke. If he expected that firmly-set mouth
to soften, that steady eye to turn away in eon-
fused denial of his statements, he was disap-
pointed.

“ Well,” she said, coolly, “I quite understand
your position. It was the best thing you could
do for your yourself. I don’t think you were |
half good enough for her, but if she is satis-
fied, all is well.”

“She dotes on me! She worships the very
ground I tread on!” he eried, stung by her in-
difference.

“You are a lucky man. Why don’t you
give the world at large a peep at your domes-
ic happiness ?”

“ Ah—there’s the rub! Kitty is an angel—
but she is also a farmer's daughter. She knows.
nothing of the rules of society. How can I
introduce her? If she should commit any
blunder, I believe it would kill me!’

“Oh, you men!” burst out Miss Marchmont,

with indignant seorn. “ Lest your vanity should

be wounded, and your pride hurt, you condemn
that pretty young creature to the dreariest sol-
itude, while you go about enjoying yourself!
I tell you I won’t have it! You are not going
to make her miserable while I can help it. I
dare say she is erying her eyes,out for you at
home this very moment, while you are lament-
ing over her ignorance of the rules of society!
Ihave no patience with you! And this non-
sense must be done away with direetly. Tell
Mrs. Oliver I am coming to eall on her to-mor-
row morning. Rules of society, indeed! Good-
night!” '

She went into the next room, fuming to her-
self all the way.

“A pretty scrape I have got myself into!”
thought Mr. Oliver, as he left the house.
“Confound Miss Marehmont! Why can’t she
attend to her own business and let mine alone?”

He said nothing to Kilty that night-of the
threatened invasion; nor could he summon
courage todo so the next morning. He went
off to town instead, very early, feeling positive:
ly afraid to face the visitor, or to witness the
meeting. :

At twelve o’clock, just as Kitty was walking
up and down the garden, thinking somewhat
drearily of Brook and her poor old father, #
great black Newfoundland dog came blunien
ing through a little gate in the opposite hedge

and began to bark at her. He was followed br

 
32 *

“a lady dressed in tlack. Kitty's heart stood
still. She recognized the stranger of the New
Forest. Miss Marehmont walked straight up
to her and teok her hand.

“My dear, you must exeuse this most un-
aeremonious visit, and the bad behavior of Mas-
ter Frederick,” she said. “I found, by the
merest accident, that you were living here, and
so ranin justas Iwas. We are near neigh-
bor’s, Mrs. Oliver; I hope I may soon adc, we
are near friends.”

Kitty looked a moment into the frank, smil-
ing eyes, and all doubts and suspicions of their
owner vanished like the morning mist before
the morning sun. If Miss Marchmont and Mr.
Oliver had ever been fond of each other, would
she have sought out his wife in this marked
friendly manner? Oh no! She pressed the
kind hand that held her own, and said, shyly,
that she lonyed for a friend. Miss Marchmont
bent down aud kissed her. From that moment
they were like sisters.

Oue week from that day, Miss Marehmont
was “ At Ilome” in Mayfair. Her pretty draw-
ing-rooms were thronged with her literary ac-
quaintanees, all of whom were set on the gui
vive by her promise of an introduction to a
new beauty before the evening was over. At
ten o'clock, just as the freshness and interest of
the literary discussions were beginning to die
away, the servant threw open the door, and an-
nounced “Mr, and Mrs. Oliver.”

There was a general murmur of surprise, and

every ove came hurrying from the other rooms,
in time to see Miss Marchmont advance to re-

eeive her guests. Jt was no mistake on the
part of the servant! Francis Oliver stood be-
fore them, with a ludicrously stiff and embar-
~rassed air, and Miss Marchmont was shaking
hands with a little fairy in white silk, with a
wreath of lilies of the valley in her dark hair
—the prettiest woman who had made her début
in a London drawing-room during the whole
season.

CHAPTER X.

“ Ay, thougn it throb at gentlest touch,
At sorrow’s faintest call ;
- 'Twere better it should ache foo much
Than never ache at all.
The heart—the heart that’s truly blest,
Is never all its own;
No ray of glory lights the breast
That beats for self alone.”—ExLiz4 Coox.
Nowhere did Miss Marchmont appear to greats
er advantage than in her own house. Abroad,
she was often apt to be somewhat brusque in
her manner, somewhat dictatorial in her mode
of speech; but when she reeerved her guests \
beneath her own roof, all this harshness was
toned down, and a gentle anxiety to please,
which was infinitely more charming, took its
place. Under the protection of her own house-
hold gods she could afford to be her better self,

THE REJECTED WIFE; OR,

and the stranger within her gates was as sacred
in her eyes as if she had been born beneath the
tent of a Bedouin sheik. No one ever had rea-
son to complain of their weleome or their en-
tertainment in Mayfair, however coldly the lady
of the house might have treated them at other
times, and in other homes.

Kitty's visit had, of course, been confined to
the rustic cirele of which she was the favorite
and the belle. In that humble village people —
went to see cach other, because they found —
pleasure in s0 doing, and weleomed each other
kindly, because their hearts were full of good
will. The country-girl was simple enough to
imagine that the same state of things existed in
London. She knew nothing of the art of freez-
ing human beings into nonentities, which is
practiced with such perfect success in good sp-
ciety. She had no idea that a host or hostess
might, like “Mary in the birehen lane” of the
old song, often ‘say one thing and mean an-
other’, and weleome her cordially to house and
home with their lips, while in their hearts they
wished her at tie bottom of the Red Sea. Can-—
sequently, the marked kindness of Miss March-
mcnt's reception was in one sense Jost upon
her. But Mr. Oliver felt it deeply. Whatever
Miss Marchmont did, became the fashion amoug
her own peculiar circle, and there was little
fear of Kitty after she had been so kindly shul-
tered by that protecting hand.

It was a nervous ordeal for so proud and 60
sensitive aman. The men and women to whom _
his wife were about to be presented, were 0
the royal rank in literature, highly educated,
satirical, and fastidious to a fault. Among the
group was one of the most eclebrated writers ©}
the day, famous above all other things for the
skill with which he fastened upon some salient
point in a character, gave it a humorous twist,
and held it up for the amusement of his read-
ers. The man could no more help quizzing
than he could breathing ; what if he should se-
lect Kitty as the model for his new heroine?
Mr. Oliver trembled and wiped his forehead at
the bare idea, and finally sought refuge in the —
chess-parlor, quite unable to stand and wateh |
the process of victimization as it went on.

Mr. Oliver called himself a student of human
nature, and flattered himself that he understoo!
the world and its people a trifle better than
most of his neighbors. But, with all his wis-
dom, he had never learned one thing, which lit-
tle Kitty seemed to understand intuitively. It
was this. That no man or woman can ever
ridiculous so long as they are simply and nat
urally themselves. If we go fraukly into society
and say, “Here I am, ugly, awkward, an
stupid, it may be, but still ready to do my best
to please,” we are accepted as frankly amon
those whose opinion is worth caring for; an
our ugliness, our awkwardness, our stupidity 18
forgiven and overlooked. But when we seek t0

 
A BROKEN LIFE.

wo re beyond our natural places—when we wear
© borrowed feath-rs—when we ape airs and graces
when we endeavor in every way possible, as
the old song has it, “to astonish the Browns”,
We make spectacles of our-elves , and, as a
Ma’ ter of course, find society laughing heartily,
both at the attempts and the Judierous failures.
Little Kitty met her new acquaintances frank-

ly and simply, bat with a shy, timid grace that
Went very far to win their hearts. She talked
With people, who had hitherto been kuown to
her only through their books, and, with their
help, talked very well. Miss Marchmont said
little, but listened attentively and watched Kit-
ty’s face when she was nob looking her way.
The great humorist sat down beside the young
Wife, and seemed to forget that his mission in
life was to quiz every human being who fell in
his wav, for he was listeniug to her account of
the little cottage, and the good old father, and
the fai:hfal house-dog she had Jeft bebind, as if
She was repeating a sweet little poem. A young
et, who had been admiring her fresh aud art-
i beauty foe some time in silence, now joined

in the conversation, and askel her some ques-
tion about the New Forest. There Kitty was
Perfectly at home. Her face flushed up, her
eyes kindled, her lips smiled upon the speaker,
aud for the next ten mimautes green trees waved
Over the heads of the listeners, forest brooks
Marnared, and wild birds sang. Kitty had

that wift of description which places a scene
8fore the hearer’s eve, with all its poctry of

ife, and color and motion, and the authors ex-
Chinged glances when she finisiied, as if they
iseovered an unexpectel prize. Then the
“lady of the lost trives”, as the eastern author-
883 was sportively niekuamed, sat down to the
Piano, and urgzed by her an! by them all, Kitty
Sang a quaint little forest ballad, whieh she had
Warble! many atime in the hob summer after-
Noons beside that wall remembered brook. Her
Voie, thoush not peculiarly strong, was very
Sweet, anl the simple, sal masie suited it well.
t. Oliver entered justas the last notes were
Ying away, and could searcely be ieve his eyes
When he saw the groap that pressed around her
With smiles and thanks. As soon as possible
@ contrived to get beside Miss Marehmont and
fross-qaestion her. :

“Wiat is it? what have they been doing
With her? what has she been singing?”

“One of the sweetest balla's you ever heard
tn your lif. Do vou know, Mr. Oliver, she has
Quite surprised me. I had no idea there was so

1 Mach in her”

ey In little Kitty ?” 5) :
ioe His eyes dwelt pon his wife a moment with
— Surprise. He could see her beanty, her youth,
her freshness as well as any one, but self-esteem
linded him to all else that was worthy of ad-
Miration about her. If the humorist had come
Up to him and said: “ Sir, I admire your wife,
1

33

and consider her a clever as well as a beautiful
woman,” be would have felé sure that the man
wis laughing at bim in his sleeve. Kitty was
good, she was gentle, she was devoted, faithful,
sweet-tempered, and obliging, he was ready to
acknowledge all that. But as for any latent
talent, any hidden genius, any possibility or
probability of cleverness beneath that simple
modest exterior—pshaw! the idea was quite
ridiculous !

So blinded, he took her home that evening
when the pleasant party broke up. And since
he could not hide from himself that her first
appearance had been a decided success, he set
it modestly down to the fact of her being his
wife! It was to him and to his works that
this indirect homage was paid! And, with this
gratilying reflection, he bade Kitty good-night
and went placidly to sleep. ;

CHAPTER XI.
“ There’s a love that keeps
A constant watch-fire light,
With a flame that vever sleeps -
Through the Jongest winter night.
It is not always wise, ;
And it is not always blest,
For it bringeth tearfuleyes, |
And it leaves a sighing breast.”
A fairer lot hath he ¢
Who loves awhile, then goes,
Like the linnet from the tree,
Or the wild bee from the rose.
O love! love: love'
Soon makes the hair turn gray;
When only one fills all the heart,
And that one’s far away.”
—Eniza Coor.
Some months passed by, and the beautiful
suminer was upon the earth once more. Gan
Eden smiled in the warm sunshine; but the
face of its young mistress was paler and more
thoughtful than of old. Something was evi-
dently wrong. Wasit the home? It could searee
be that. : ,
And yet, as she sat looking out upon the
Jawn and garden that beautiful May day, she
seemed to take little note of birds, of sunshine,
or of flowers. Her husband’s last book, fresh
from the press, was lying open on her knee.
* * * 1 * *

Kitty, after she had read it, leaned her cheek
upon fier hand, and went off into a reverie of
the most sombre deseription. The publishing
of that book had been a bitter mortifieation to
her. It was full of eutting allusions, of bitter
complaininys, which she understood better than
any of its other readers could possibly do.

It scemed strange, indeed, that domestic
misery should enter that modern paradise, and
so soon! \

Living with seareely a wish ungratified, what
cause was there for Kitty's lips ever to breathe
a sigh, or for Kitty’s heart to throb wearily in
her bosom? For atime she had been perfeetly
happy Her home was a beautiful one; every

 
.

34

wish she formed was quickly indulged, and her
husband was as fond and devoted as her lover
had been. It-was long, long before she would
own that she ever missed the small white cot-
taze at Brook, even in her dreams.

For three months the sunshine lasted ; then
the shadow came. By degrees a dreadful fear
crept over the young wife’s heart. Could it be
that Francis loved ber less than when he wooed
her from her humble home? Ie was not often
with her. He was scrupulously polite in pub-
lie, but silent and careless in his manner in ‘pri-
vate. lle yawned, too, scores of times, when
she was singing, and excused himself from a
téte-i-téte at the fireside, by a plea of ‘ busi-
ness’? each evening. She knew it was a false

one ; she knew he had no “ business to oceupy

his time; and she grew pale and ill with jeal-
ousy—of what or whom she could not say at
first.

This was the state of things to which her
husband, in his latest additions to his new nov-
el, had made such unnecessary, such eruel allu-
sions. As she read the passages, and knew
why, how, and when he had penned thm, hei
courage and her faith gave way.

Thinking all these melancholy thoughts, with
the bright May sunshine falling pleasantly
around her, Kitty heard a light step in the pas-
sage—a light knock at the door.

“Enter,” she said, listlessly, for she knew it
was not her husband; and Miss Marehmont
eame in, and put her arm around her waist.

“ Alone, and sad, { think,” she said, gently.

“ You are right.”

“ And what can make you sad ?”

Kitty did not answer for a moment.
she looked up in her friend’s face

“Will you be’ angry if I ask you a ques-
tion 2”

“Tam never angry with you.
like.”

“Why have you never married, Olive ?”

The Jaly’s cheek flushed deeply.

“Some people would perhaps say because I
could not. You know to the contrary, how-
ever. There is a reason; but I would rather

~ not tell it to you.”

“T heard you vive one last night, Olive, to
your cousin Margaret.”

* “ Where were you ?”

“Sleeping en the divan in the library at
your house. Your voices awoke me. That
was the first thing I heard, and the last you
said.”

“ Good heavens, Kitty! I did not mean—”

“T know you would not have said it, if you
had known I was there. I think I shall never

forget the words: that you had avoided mar.
riage beeause you believed a man always tired
of his wife—that when Mr. Oliver married, you
hoped to see the exception to the rale—but—”
Kitty's voice faltered sadly—* sinee he had

Then

Ask what you

'

 

THE REJECTED WIFE; OR,

known La Stella, you feared he was like all his
kind.”

Miss Marchmont looked and felt deeply dis-
tressed. But she could not retraet her words,
or tell the young wife that her information was
incorrect.

“Have you seen Mr. Oliver since?” she
asked, at last.

“No. O Olive! I have not spoken to him
for three days! He has se:reely been in the
house during that time. He who was always

by my side once. It will kill me. I shall
die.”
“No.” And Miss Marchmont bent down and

kissed her tears away. ‘ You shall live, Kitty,
to win him back again. I am sure he Joves
you after all. Courage! All will yet be well.”

“ When?” said Kitty, with a heavy sigh.
“ Ah, Olive, my heart is breaking! I thought
ITecould make him so happy; and it seems to
me that he seareely knows if I am in the world
or out of it. Look at his book, too! What
will people think of him—of me—of our home
—when they see it? Ob, it is too hard—too
hard !”

And, burying her face in her hands, she burst
into a passionate fit of weeping.

Miss Marehmont searecly knew what to say-
Mr. Oliver’s admiration of the new singer was
a standing jest among his friends; and though
she had hoped to keep it a secret from Kitty,
it was out at last. Vexed and annoyed with
herself for having been the means of enlighten-
ing her, she sat in silence till the storm passe
over, and then did her best to heal the wound
she had so carelessly made.

“My dear child, don’t ery so,” she said. “If
is nothing—nothing, I assure you. I had heard
some idle gossip which I ought not to have list
ened to for a moment, still less repeated. JE
you go on like that, you will make me very un-
happy.” '

“How ean I help it?” said Kitty, wiping
away her tears. “I see that he has ceased to
care for me; and IJ, oh, I love him more dearly
than ever! Why did this woman come here to
take him from me ?”’

“My dear, if all reports are true, she does
not care a pin for him; so there is no necessity
for you to ery your eyes out on her account.”

“Tell me all you know about it.”

“T suppose I know quite as much as m
neighbors, which is really very little after all-
La Stella is very good looking, very vraceful,
very fascinating, and Mr. Oliver has been fool
ish enough to express his admiration of her
rather more publicly than a married man ought
todo. That) is all, upon my word, Kitty. La
Stella is quite as respectable as you or I, for
ought I know to the contrary. She lives very
quietly with her poor old mother, and she I®
engaged to a voung Italian, who often’ sings
with her. They say she laughs heartily at Mr

 
  
  

Oliver's infatuation, and has never encouraged
it in the least. In fact, I do not think he ever
saw her off the stage in his life.”

Kitty breathed more ay for a moment.

“Have you ever seen La Stella?” she asked.

“ Onee or twice.”

“J must see her, too. She sings to-night.
You must go with me to London.”

* My dear child !”

“You must!”

“Do you knowI am almost sure that Mr.
Oliver will be there ?”

4 “ Well, I'cannot help it,” said Kitty, defiant-
\ ly. “I shall go all the same.”

a In that willful mood there was no controlling
her, and Miss Marchmont gave way. That
evening they entered a private box at. the
Opera, and took their places just as the overture
Was finished.

The house was crammed from pit to ceiling,
and every eye was fixed anxiously upon the
_ Orchestra, whose signal was to bring the queen

of the night before them.

Kitty, gazing eagerly about the house, and

only for one face, soon discovered it. Her hus-
and sat alone in the stage-box; his head
eaned upon bis hand; he trifled with a crown
Of roses lying on the cushion before him; he
looked pale, and the poor wife thought, also, sad.
as he by chance thinking of her, and the
Toses, she gave him at the garden-gate of her
father’s cottage, not many months ago ?
_ A low aerial strain breathed from a score of
‘ustruments gave the preconcerted signal. As
if in answer to the magic music, a slender,
graceful figure stood before them, dressed in the
flowing robes, and crowned with the wreath of
“Norma”.

Kitty leaned forward, and looked at her
faverly. That was La Stella—the woman who
had won her husband's heart. She felt sure of

_.',as she watched him while scene after scene
| Passed on.
|  . Seemingly unconscious of the critical eyes

lat were watching, and the critical ears that
Were listening, La Stella threw herself into her
| Part with an intense earnestness that subdued

4nd thrilled her hearers, and hushed them to a
Perfect silence. She smiled to herself at that
8reat tribute 4o her genuius, as she leaned
Against a pillar, exhausted with her over-
‘| Wrought feelings.
| , The multitude, ree: vered from their trance,
|} gan to shout for “La Stella”.
| . The manager brought her before the curtain.
. Every one rose instinetively ; and the theatre
Was ‘a seene of frightful excitement. “La
| Stellar La Stella!’ was the shout from tier

% tier, and among the deluge of wreaths and

/ | %%nuquets that fell as her feet, a crown of snow-
| | White roses was seen to flutter down ; she stoop-
 €d for it herself, and, casting a glance toward

he giver, went off the stage with it in her

 

 

 

Bs

 

A BKOKEN LIFE.

35

hand. Kitty clung to Miss Marchmont, and
her heart seemed dying within her.

“Oh! you said she did not care for him !”
she gasped. “And yet you sawit all. Oh!
what shall I do ?—what shall I do ?”

Miss Marchmont drew the curtains hurriedly
in front of the box; and said, under her
breath :

“Don’t be absurd ; don’t make a scene; for
people are looking this way already. And
more than that, J am sure that Mr. Oliver saw
us just now, and that he will be here direetly.”

She was not mistaken. The door of the box
opened, and Mr. Oliver, pale with anger, stood
before them. He bowed formally to Miss
Marchmont, and offered his arm to Kitty. She
took it without a word; for she was too un-
happy to speak, and they left the box together.
Miss Marchmont gazed after them with a look
of blank dismay ; then the ludicrous side of the
incident struck her fancy, and laughing a little,
she sat down again to watch the progress of the
afterpiece.

Bitter words and angry reproaches passed.
between the married pair that night. The
breach was too serious to be healed, the wound
too deep to be forgiven. Before the morning
dawned, they had separated, perhaps forever!
And Francis Oliver was on his way to the con.
tinent, while Kitty, angry and resentful, still
remained in their onee happy home. ,

On the first evening after Mr. Oliver’s de-
parture, Kitty visited their most familiar haunt
within the grounds of Gan Eden.

A few hasty words, spoken in the heat of
pride and anger, had served to break the gol-
den chain that bound them together.

No one could take the place of that Jost
friend —no one could be to her all that the lost
lover had been.

This, then, was the end of all! Here her
dreams of love must end with the ending of its
reality—here all thoughts of happiness be laid
down for ever! Ah, how differently she had
pictured the fortune of the future, when Francis
Oliver first wooed her for his bride. She lean.
ed her head upon her hands, too worn out and
bewildered, to weep. She thought of her
mother’s grave in the little hill-side churchyard
at Brook, and then the deepest yearning of the
sorrowful heart broke out :

“QO mother! mother! why did you leave
me? Why do you not come to comfort me
now?”

It was a bitter hour—a hard struggle—a ter-
rible lesson; but, after all, only the common
one which every son of Adam and daughter o%
Eve must have by heart before they die.

DoI seem to dwell too long upon this sha-
dowy portion of my “ower true tale?” Glad-
ly would I make it more full of sunshine, but
facts forbid. When those of whom I write
linger long amid the tempest and the storm,

*

 
36

what am I to do but linger there also, and
faithfully trace each step that led them out
once more to the light of day?
Wearily and sadly the summer days passed
by.
vxitty was young and unused to pain—she
had been treated harshly and unkindly, and re-
sented that treatment as only a young and un-
broken spirit could do. The discipline which
should soften, and purify, and fit her for hap-
piness could only come to her aid after much
suffering and the lapse of years.

CHAPTER XII.

“ Heedless of all, I wildly turned,
My soul forgot—nor, oh, condemn
That when such eyes before me burned—
My soul forgot all eyes but them!

“ That moment did the mingled eyes
_ Of heaven and earth my madness view,
Ishould have seen, through earth and skies,
But you alone—but only you.” —Moore.

A deserted wife !

There is a whole history of sorrow, of danger,
of temptation, and of sin in those three words,
to an understanding eye. A woman, with all a
woman’s dangerous gifts of beauty, grace, and
talent, her best feelings trampled upon, her love
despised, is left to herself in a world that is full
of pitfalls for the unwary, full of danger for us

_ all. The privileges, the liberty of a wife are
hers—hers, also, the privileges and the liberty
of an independent single woman. Her position
is so peculiar that the eyes of all are upon her—
she is watched upon the right and upon the
left, and being painfully conscious that what-
ever she says or does is almost certain to be
misunderstood, she grows careless and defiant,
and, in nine cases out of ten, takes her own
wuy, regardless of the society which is so eager
to chronicle her first false step. What else can
be expected? I am not speaking of a good, of
a “religious” woman, to whom such a trial
would only come as an additional means of puri-
fication. I am speaking of a warm, stdinel,

lined nature—of a proud and faulty heart—of

itty’s heart. She was a mere girl still—she
was gay, beautiful, and high-spirited. Her first
entrance into society had been a most successful
one; she was followed, flattered, and petted by
men and women whose simple notice would have
been an honor to a queen. Therefore, when ber
husband, conscious of his own wrong-doing, and
enraged at her knowledge of it, left her so sud-
denly and abruptly, what was the natural result
of the rash action? Was she to shut herself
up forever in the green recesses of ‘ Gan

iden”? Miss Marchmont, it is true, counseled
such a prudent retirement, but Kitty hated sol:
itude, and answered, “No”! She went back
among her friends, who weleomed her gladly.
Enough was known of the quarrel and its cause
to justify her in the eves of the world, and for
once women espoused the cause of a sister wom-

THE REJECTED WIFE; OR,

an, and abused Mr. Oliver soundly, while they
protected and encouraged his wife. Never had
the parties been so pleasant—never had she met _
With such kindness from every one as now. She
laughed at Miss Marehmont’s warnings, threw
open “ Gan Eden” to her visitors, went to pat»
ties, operas, and balls without end, and took her
pleasure bravely, without troubling her head
with the proceedings of Mr. Oliver ing France
and Germany.

She loved him, it is true; but she was made
up of pride as well as of affection, and he ha
wounded that pride to the quick by his publi¢
renunciation of her. Though she never saW
him again on earth, she would not be the first
to sue for a reconciliation. When Miss Mareb-
mont undertook the part of mediator, she was

surprised at the fund of resolution and obstinacy

with which the young wife met her. There are
some people who find it much more difficult to
be forgiven than to forgive ; and Kitty was one
of them. If her husband chose to come and
acknowledge his fault to her, she said, she might
excuse it and weleome him back ; but nothing
on earth should ever induce her to make the first
advance ; she would die before she would do it!
And there the matter rested, and two hearts
pledged solemnly to each other at the altar, beat
apart—anger, and hatred, and defiance blending —
with every unquiet throb.

And now IJ approach a very awkward—a very
unpleasant part of my history. Kitty was one —
of those unfortunate creatures who, with the
best intentions in the world, are perpetually
getting themselves into serious scrapes, unless
they are carefully watched over and tended by
a faithful and constant guide. The poor child's
manner was frank, free, and confiding ; her heart
was warm and generous, and always in need 0
something to love, and her nature was kind an¢é
sympathizing to a degree ; and all these quali
ties, 80 good in themselves, combined togethe? |
at this period, it would seem, to draw her on t0
misery and shame.

She had, as I have already said, Miss Mareb- _
mont for a near neighbor, as well as an intimate
friend. But “Gan Eden” had two sides, at
while the left wing overlooked the hospitable
roof of the “Growlery”, the right trenched
closely upon the grounds of the “ White Pines”s
a large and handsome villa, occupied by a ré-
turned Bast Indian, whose wealth was so fabu-—
lous that the children in the neighborhood wer
firmly imbued with the belief that he ofteD
breakfasted on melted pearls, and had diamonds
and rubies served yp, as a matter of course
each day with his déssert. His house in tow?
was a perfect palace ; his two country-seats were
marvels of taste and display. while his villa, oF
“ box”, as he modestly called it, needed only the —
“roe’s exe”? of Aladdin’s marvelous hall, 1
make it the eighth “onder of the world in Kit
ty’s admiring eyes. ie

 
    

 

ee I Cee Nag ee Be gS i me

pS eg OR eee ne RE ae

 

   
  
  

The East Indian was a childless widower, and
being somewhat lonely in his splendid villa,
during one of his visits there, had amused him-
self with watching the movements of his neigh-
bors in their pretty garden. Kitty’s wild-rose
face pleased him—some tone in her voice, some
turn of her head or figure—reminded him of
his long-buried wife, and he determined to make
her acquaintance. This was easily done. To
know Mr. Conyers, was, vulgarly speaking, a
great “feather in one’s cap”, and when Mr. Oli-
ver was told at a dinner-party one evening that
the great man wished to be introduced to him,
he went through the ceremony with a flutter of
delight. His writings, no doubt, had attracted

_ his attention!

« And where is Mrs. Oliver?” asked Mr. Con-
yers, after a moment's conversation.

The author answered indifferently that she
was at home, and went op with other things.
The great man lifted his eyebrows slightly as he
talked. The next morning he called at “Gan
Eden”, and saw Kitty. From that day he wag
often at the house, and the first fruits and flow-
ers from his forcing-houses and conservatories
were always sent to her with his “love”. Mr.
Oliver laughed at his courtesy sometimes, and
told Kitty that she ought to try hard for a place
in the nabone will; but he never tried to check
the intimacy, and Kitty learned to associate
most of her pleasures with the idea of the kind
and good old man—especially after Mr. Oliver
had left her. For then, no father could have
been kinder to or more thoughtful for her than
Mr. Conyers. ;

All this was very well. But from these sim-
ple and innocent causes, most extraordinary
effects sometimes ensue. Asin this case. Mr.
Conyers took it into his head that Kitty must
be dull by herself—that Miss Marchmont was
too old and too literary to be a proper compan-
ion for her. Miss’ Marehmont would have felt
infinitely obliged to him, had she known which
way his thoughts were tending ; but they were
first revealed to her, as well as to every one
else, by the apparition of a pretty, golden-
eurled, blue-eyed girl of seventeen, who was in-
troduced at “Gan Eden ” and the “ Growlery ”
by the nabob, with no small pride, as “My
niece, Louisa”. My niece, Louisa, was a very

ood as well as a very pretty girl, but Miss
Gterchmont did not exactly take to her. Her
ideas of literature were too vague — her ideas

about erotchet-work and husbands too well de-

fined to suit the authoress. But Kitty fell in
Jove with her at first sight, and the fancy seem-
ed quite mutual. At the end of a week’s time,
they were inseparable, and if you called the
name of one, the other was pretty sure to come
with her when she answered. Their styles of

beauty and of dress were so utterly different,

that there could be no rivalry between them,
and they went out continually under the pro-

  

  

A BRUEN LIFE. 3t

tection of Mr. Conyers, who was as fussy over
them as if he had been an old hen with two
chicks. Except during the first weeks of her
marriage, I question if Kitty had ever been so
happy in her life.

Into this small Eden, with its twin Eves, the
serpent came at last. Kitty’s new friend had
one most dangerous fault—she had a brother!
And this brother, a young officer in the Guards,
was his uncle’s acknowledged heir, and had, of
course, sometimes to pay his respects at the
“White Pines”. He had been somewhat amiss
in this duty till his sister came ; for he hated the
seclusion of the place, and missed the company
of his brother officers and friends, whom he was
never allowed to bring with him. But after he
had paid one visit to his sister, and seen her
new friend, it was wonderful how. attentive a
brother and nephew he became. Did Louisa
wish to ride, to walk, to go to the opera, or to
the play, it was always “dear George” who
escorted her. Mr. Conyers and Mrs. Oliver, of
course, joined the party. Then there were
quiet family dinners at the “ Pines”, to which
Mrs. Oliver was always invited, and which she
never failed to attend. George was invariably
present, and what so natural, as that when he
gathered flowers for Louisa’s hair and a bouquet
in his unele’s conservatory, he should gather
some for her friend at the same time? They
were worn; splendid crimson blossoms, or pink,
waxy buds, that set off Kitty’s dark, bright
beauty well. Then came long strolls upon the
lawn, and around the moonlit grounds, or quiet
evenings in the library, when the young captain
read aloud to the ladies as they sewed — or
evenings full of music as a grape is full of wine,
while Mr. Conyers slept placidly in his easy-
chair, or as placidly surveyed the beautiful
group, eqngratulating himself on the fact that
not one among his neighbors or acquaintances
had handsomer “ young people” than he. Good,
innocent man! he was so utterly unconscious
all the while of the mischief he was helping on,
that it was quite ludicrous to see.

Ah, me, how dangerous, and yet how sweet,
such intimacies are! It is very wrong, I know,
and so does every one else know, but it seems
as if the slight consciousness of possible danger
gives an added zest to these interviews. It is
the seasoning that makes the peculiar charm of
the dish ! °

It matters little what gives the first touch to
the “electric chord” wherewith poor Byron
declares we are bound. The most trifling thing
ean do it—a look, a word, a touch of the trem-
bling hand—the perfume of a flower—a simple
note of music — all these things may lift the
vail, and make what was before but diml
guessed at, plain as the open day. It is dan-
gerous work always, when two souls under.

stand each other like this — and one of them is
bound !
 

38

By degrees Kitty came to like the visitor, and
to look far more eagerly than she would have
confessed to herself or to any one else, for his
coming. He was very much like his sister. He
had the same peculiar delicacy of complexion,
the same deep blue eyes, the same soft, golden
hair. He was more than handsome—he was
beautiful. And yet his six feet of stature, his
broad shoulders, his heavy moustache, and his
martial carriage, saved him from the charge of
effeminacy. He was brave, too, as well as gen-
tle. Louisa had told her friend of some of his
exploits abroad, which he, himself, could never
be induced to mention, and they all spoke well
for his gallantry and his humanity. Kitty liked
him none the less, believe me, that he had smelt
powder, and faced a score of Russians, while he
carried a wounded friend from the trenches at
Sebastopol. She thought of him sometimes,
exposed to that muderous fire, with a shudder
of fear. What if one bullet had proved fatal ?
What if that golden head had been laid low?
Ah, Kitty, Kitty—those were dangerous reveries
of yours!

She had’ no intention of being unfaithful in
word, thought, or deed, to her absent husband.
But the constant companionship, the tender
friendship, compared with the long absence, and
the bitter estrangement, were not without their
eharms. She felt this, and excused it to herself
in her, more serious moments, by saying that
she liked George Conyers for his sister's sake.
He was like a brother to her—nothing more.
When a young, beautiful, and lonely woman
says that of a young, havdsome, and disengaged
man, we know only too well what it may possi-
bly come in time to mean.

would not be understood for a moment to
hint at anything very wrong. These two were
dba by the most favorable circumstances

rom falling into any great sin. Their intima-

ev was sanctioned by those nearest and dearest
to them—there was no obstacle in the way of
their friendship, and even the world, however
much it might gibe at such an intimacy in pri-
vate, was forced, from the very nature of things,
to be civil about the matter in public. Add
to this that every thought of Kitty’s heart
would have shrunk from evil, and thaf the cap-
tain still retained enough of the boy about him
to enable him to respect the woman he loved,
and you will see that if they went headlong
into ruin, they could not, at least, lay the
' biame, as too many are wont to do, upon the

““elreumstances” and the “ fate” that led them

on, and on, in spite of the struggles they con-

tinually made to escape.

At last, however, there came a time (that
stime always does come) when they read each
others heart’s more plainly than they had ever
done before. They were riding one afternoon
in a green, shady lane, with the deepest flush
and glory of a closing summer’s day around

THE REJECTED WIFE; OR,

‘and from those lips. No one had ever calle

  
 

and above them. Louisa was of the party, but
her thoughts, at that moment, seemed to be
very far away. The attendant groom lagge
far behind, and Captain Conyers and Mrs. Oli-
ver, riding side by side, had the conversation
quite to themselves. At last it languished.
There was along silence. Louisa, still lost in
thought, never looked toward the pair. George
Conyers drew a long, deep breath.

“ How beantiful it all is! And yet—I den’t
know why—it makes me feel sad.”

Kitty smiled and sighed. The same vague,
restless yearning was troubling both their
hearts

“One feels so lonely on a day like this,” he
went on, in the same low tone. ‘One feels the
need of close, warm ties to bind them to this
lovely earth.”

“You should marry,” said Kitty, dreamily.

“Marry! I marry!”

Something in his tone startled her unac-
countably. Their eyes met, and both turned
crimson.

“ No—I shall never marry,” he said, slowly-
“ At least—not—not as things are now.” ;

Another long pause. Then Kitty faltered
out, “ Would it not be better ?”

“Do you wish it? You of all women in the
world. Do you wish me to marry ?”

“Why not?” she murmured, looking every- —
where except at him.

“Nay, answer the question fairly. If you ©
wish me to marry, [ will do so to-morrow. Do
you ?” ‘

She ought to have said ‘‘ Yes”—said it heart-
ily and sineerely. Then he would have rushed
off in a fit of pique, married the first woman
who would have had him, and all would have
been well. But Kitty could not tell a fib, and
now that the question was put so pointedly,
she knew that she did not wish it. She hated
his possible wife already—at the bare thought
of her existence. What—all those delicate af-—
tentions, those gentle words, those affectionate
looks, to be given to another woman, and she
left. desolately and lonely once again! She
could not bear that.

“Do you?” said the low voice; and the
pleading sorrowful blue eyes looked deep into
her own. “ Katharine—do you wish it?”

A thrill ran over her at hearing that name,

    
 
 
    
   
   
    
 
  
 
   
  
   
    
  
  
   
  
   
    
  
  
   
    
  
   
   
  
 

her Katharine before, and he who did it, seem-
ed thus to make her peculiarly his own.

“ No—I do not wish it,” she said, so low that
he could scarcely her her. He bent in his sad-
dle to listen, flushed up suddenly, and laid his
hand on hers. She glanced toward Louisa,
hurriedly, and eantered away. But i look
—that clasp of the hand, had told her all!

 
    
   
 
   

 

  
  
 

 

 

CHAPTER XIII.

4 You read it in my languid eyes,
And there alone should love be read

You bear me say it all in sighs,
And thus alone should love be said.

«« Then dread no more. I will not speak,
Although my heart to anguish thrill
I'll spare the burning of your cheek,
And look it all in silence still.”
—Moore.

What, then, is a woman to do in a case like

is?

Of course, my dear lady, you are quite right
in what you are about to say. There is but one
thing which she can do with propriety, and that
1 _ is, to break off so dangerous an acquaintance at
| Once, and for ever.

But ah! as Fun so truly says, “It is not with
uneducated people only, that ought stands for
Nothing.” It is so very easy to talk of one’s

duty, and so very hard to fulfill it! And the

- plainest duty is generally the hardest.

___ Kitty knew as well as you or I, dear reader,

that she ought to see the young captain no

More. She said little to him during the remain-
der of that day ; and at its close, when she was
‘| safe within her own little room at ‘‘Gan Eden,”
‘| &he thought soberly of all that had happened,
} and all that might happen if the intimacy was

Rot checked.

There was danger. There were rocks and
breakers ahead. She saw them plainly at last,
{ %8 she walked up and down the room, with her

hands clasped behind her. Her friend was be-

Coming something nearer—something dearer
| thana friend to her; and she was a wife, though
| 2 deserted one. Her lonely heart cried and
Pined for the sympathy and affection if saw 80
plainly within its reach, and she checked it
8ternly. She had been weak and vrong so far,
ut she would atone for her unconscious error
the spot. And under the influence of thie
| tesolution, she sat down at her desk and penned
this note to the captain :

   
  
 
     
  
  

“You were wrong this afternoon. You must see and
] tel it by this time. And I think I must have done some-
e ing wrong myself, or you never would have presumed
far. We ought never to meet again. And yet I love
Ouisa, and it would break my heart to give up my
iend go suddenly. Do pray stay away from the villa
a little time, till you have quite forgotten this after-
_ Won and—me. “ KATHARINE.
She sent this note the next day by the hands
of her own maid. There she committed a great
blunder ; for the woman, of course, supposed it
ust be a love-letter, and fancied she had got
her mistress in her power. She had made other
lunders in the note, as may be seen. She had
| %cknowledged the existence of danger, and ask-
_ td him to stay away, which was much ; she had
Confessed that she could not give up his sister,
8nd had signed herself Katharine, which was
far more. In her short apprenticeship to the
World and its people, she had learned many
ings, it is true, but she had many ‘yet to learn.

A BROKEN LIFE.

39

She would not have spelt affeetionate with one
“f” now, it may be; but she was as simple, as
unable to disguise her feelings beneath the con-
venient vail of words, as she had been, when
her seraw] upon the title-page of her first gift
made Francis Oliver smile. Wise as the sers
pent, Kitty was not, and might possibly never
be, however much she might resemble the harm-
less dove. When Captain Conyers received this
note, he seemed to be in ten different minds at
once. To waylay Kitty in her walks and rides,
to haunt her grounds, to seale her garden walls,
these’ were only two or three of the mad proj-
ects that came into his head. At last he did
the best thing for his cause, and the worst for
hers, that he could possibly have hit upon.
He went to town and staid there for a week,
without sending her a line or message of any
kind.

The first day, Kitty staid virtuously within
doors, scarcely looking out of the window, lest
she should see the captain. The second day
passed in the same manner; but she grew cross
for want of exercise, yawned all through the
evening, scolded her maid, and went to bed in
a desperately bad humor. The third day
brought Louisa, full of wondering inquiries, and
from her Kitty learned that the captain was in
town. There was no need of vigilance, and all
her trouble had been wasted, since the wolf was
miles away from the sheepfold. She felt half
angry at the thought.

On the fourth day, she rode out with Louisa ;
but the excursion was a dull one—the long, green
Janes made Mrs. Oliver melancholy, and they
came home at a very carly hour. They dined
together. In the course of the evening, several
friends dropped in fron. town, and they had
quite a gay party. At least, every one seemed
to think it so, except Kitty, who was silent and
absent, and evidently very much out of sorts.
Some one sung “Robin Adair” that evening ;
aud as the plaintive words fe}l upon her ear, so
sad, and yet so applicable to her own thoughts
at that moment, she felt as if she longed to hide
her head and weep.

The fifth day was still worse; and on the
evening of the sixth she sickened of her soli-
tude, and accompanied Miss Marechmont to an
artist’s soiree at Brompton. As they passed
down Piceadilly at a quick pace, she started
back from the carriage-window with a faint ex-
elamation.

“What is it?” asked Miss Marchmont, bend-
ing forward, ‘Anything run over. Any dog
or horse hurt?”
“No,” said Kitty, laughing in spite of her-
self. “I thought I saw some one Taher that
was all.” ;

She had seen some one she knew. And that
some one was Captain Conyers, in full evening-
dress, handing a heautifal young lady out of a
carriage before the open door of one of those

e

 
*
THE REJECTED WIFE; Ox,

splendid mansions. Kitty’s heart died within
her at the sight; and it was far oftener before
her eyes that evening than the pictures which
the bearded artists placed upon the easel, one
after another, for her inspection. A fair young
girl, with brown hair and light blue eyes, dresse
in azure satin and clouds of filmy lace; a tall
handsome man bending over her with a glance
of unmistakable devotion, and a pale and hag-
gard woman in the background, regarding the
scene with jealous eyes—little Kitty could have
~ painted them a better picture with those slight
materials than any they had there!

The seventh day came and went, and still no
note or message from Captain Conyers. Kitty’s
pride began to come to her aid, and with pride
eame returning thoughts of right and duty.
After all, why should she think so much about
him—eare so much for him? He was doing
what she bade him—why should she reproach
him for his obedience, in her secret heart? As
she stood beside her garden-gate that morning,
taking herself to task for her folly, a funeral-
train passed in the direction of the parish-
ehurch. Her eyes followed the hearse wist-
fully. The time would surely come when she
must be lying cold and still as that corpse was
lying ; and then, how small would all these vexa-
tions look, how bitterly would she lament that
she knew the right, and did it not! Earthly
things paled and faded as she gazed upon them
by the broad light of eternity. She would do
her duty while there was yet time. She would

fly from this dangerous intimacy—these danger-

ous associations. I believe, if funeral proces-
sions passed us all every ten minutes in the day,
we should behave much more wisely than we do
now.

Kitty turned away from the gate and went
into the house. She had decided upon a tour
to the Lakes, and all that morning was spent in

acking the things she wished to take with her.
n the afternoon, she called at the ‘ Growlery”
to say good-bye. Miss Marchmont was in
town, and not expected back for two or three
days. She walked over to the “ White Pines,”
made Louisa ery heartily by her strange man-
ner and her stranger farewell; and, tearing her-
self away at last, almost by force, met Captain
Conyers in the hall!

If there had not been so much at stake for
both of tiem, it would have been too laughable!
But neither of them seemed to view the unex-
pected meeting in a ludicrous light. Kitty
turned pale—the captain turned crimson—then
he offered her his arm. ~

“You must grant me five minutes’ conversa-
tion where these prying servants cannot over-
hear every word,” he said. ‘“ May I walk with
you toward your home ?”

She took his arm. As they left the house

together, she felt frightened at the sense of

peace and rest that suddenly filled her heart.

All the wearying anxiety of the last week
seemed to fade into nothing now that he was
near her again, and kind as ever. She would
hear what he had to say, and bid him farewell
for ever—but not just then!

They had entered the grounds of “Gan
Eden” before any of them spoke. He led her
to the very pine-shaded glen in which she had
sought refuge on the night of Mr. Oliver's de-
parture ; and, standing on the banks of the little

rook, he took her hand and looked into her
face. Did any vision of the New Forest and
its singing stream—any remembrance of another
friend, and another time, rise up before her eyes,
at that moment? I fear not. The sudden
meeting had so startled and unnerved her, that
she was scarcely mistress of herself—scarcely
able to remember where or what she was.

“ Katharine,” said the captain, “ why did you
write me that cruel letter ?”

“Was*it cruel? I did not mean it so. I
only meant to tell you that we must meet no
more.”

“Why not?” he asked.

“ You know as well as I.”

“And yet you see that we have met. We
must continue to meet all our lives long. Air,
earth, or ocean cannot hide you from me now,
because I love you, and you know it.”

She tried to free her hand from his, but he
only held it closer still.

“No! You must hear me now ;*and then, if

ou like, I will never speak again upon this sub-
ject. Why do you object—”

“ Why ?” she said looking at him with sur-
prise. “Am I not married? Have IJ any right
to hear such language from any man? Qh, you
know how wrong all this is! Do let me go, and
‘never come here again till I am far away.”

He dropped her hand.

“Go, then! But remember this—with you
goes all that makes my life endurable ; and if I
am to lose you entirely, I will do my best to
lose that life, too.”

“Oh, how can you talk like that! Oh, I
wish, with all my heart, that you had never met
me !”

“T cannot echo that wish. Whatever you
may make me suffer, I ean never, for a single
moment regret having known you.”

“ But what can I do to help you now? You
know that I am married—”

“ Yes—there is no need to remind me of that
fact so often,” he said, bitterly. ‘“ But, Katha-
cine, if you will only listen to me a little while,
I will show you how you can help me—how you

can make a good and happy man of me.”

“Tell me, then.” ©

“ Don’t send me away from you. Let every
thing go on as usual.”

“ How can you ask such a thing ?”

“Tf you are thinking of what happened the
other day, I assure you I will never repeat the

 
 

  
 

-

-

 

cumstances, I could not help speaking.

At that moment, and under those cir-
Nor
ean [ find it in my heart, now, to regret that I
did so. Since you have known what you are to
me, I have felt more at rest, Only, understand
once for all, Katharine, that my life is yours,
and I shall be content.”

“ But how can I accept such a sacrifice? [I
can give you nothing in return.”

“Task nothing.”

“And for a mere friendly intercourse with
Ihe, can it be possible that you are willing to
give up all nearer and dearer ties, all hopes of a

appy home with some other woman ?”

“1am quite willing.”

“You must not do it. I cannot allow it. If
You will only marry, I will still be your friend.”

“Many thanks,’ was. the sareastie reply.
“Perhaps, as you are so bent upon my marry-
ing, you will select my wife ?” ;

“Take the young lady I saw you with the
other night.”

The words came almost before Kitty knew
What she was saying. It was too late to recall
them, though she would have given worlds to

0 so.

“What young lady ?
Me ?” he asked, eagerly.

“Tt was only a stupid jest of mine. Let us
talk of other things.”

“No; you must tell me. Where could you
See me without my seeing you? With a young
ady, too!”

“There was nothing so very wonderful in the
Matter,” said Kitty, assuming an indifference
8he was very far from feeling, ‘“ Iwas going to

m, ’s soirée with Miss Marchmont, and as
We drove down Piccadilly, we happened to see
You handing a young lady out of a carriage at
the door of House. So I recommended
her to you, but only in jest.”

If he had laughed at that moment, he would
have spoiled everything. But he looked as
Zrave as a judge when he met her penetrating
glance.

“Tt was Miss Stainforth,’”’ he said, quietly.
“She is my cousin, and thinks me good enough

offence.

Where did you see

 

 

to hand her from her carriage; but as for any-
_ thing more, why she is engaged to Lord R—.,

and is to be married in three months from this
time.”
Kitty drew a long breath. Was she relieved
at hearing this piece of news? Who shall say ?
“ Well,” she said, more cheerfully; “if Miss

Stainforth is disposed of, there are plenty of

Young ladies still in the market, I think, and
You should try your fortune there.”

“ Are you serious ?”

“ Quite.”

“ You spoke so differently the other day.” —

“isut [ have been thinking since. And if
We are to continue friends, you certainly ought
to marry. It would put the intimacy on a safe

A BROKEN LIFE.

41

and pleasant footing at once. Even if I were
differently situated—if Mr. Oliver were here—
it would do so. You could then visit us as a
friend of the family—his friend as well as mine.
But while you are a single man, and I am a de-
serted wife, you will forgive me if I say, that I
think the less we see of each other the better
it will be for both of us.”

‘This is too much!” he burst out, angrily.
“ Katharine, you do not understand me. You
take me for a mere man of the world, and im-
agine that I have some sinister design in prose-
cuting this friendship. God knows, my darling,
I would rather die than injure a single hair of
your head !””

“T believe that!” she said, softly.

“Yet still you fancy I look forward to some
reward for my ‘sacrifice’, as you persist in call-
ing it. What sacrifice do I make? I don’t
want to marry unless I can marry you. IfI |
had seen you before Mr. Oliver, I would have
done my best to win you for my wife. He
came first: he holds you still. That, of course,
I cannot alter. I wish him no harm. I do not
speculate or build upon his death. I simply
say, that if, at any future time, you should be
left alone in the world—more really alone than
you are now, I should claim you as my own, if
you would let me. In the meantime, no other
woman shall fill your place in my home and
heart. If it is fated that we are never to be
more than friends to each other, so let it be;
but I shall still be faithful to you. So that I
see you sometimes—hear you speak—get one
kind word from those dear lips—one kind look
from those gentle eyes, it isgnough. I will ask
for nothing more. And you ean surely grant
so much without harming yourself or me. I
ask you to do nothing wrong, Katharine—only
to show a little mercy to a poor, forlorn wretch,
who has nothing but you on earth—nothing to
love—nothing to hope for.” :

His voice died away in a sob, and Kitty’s
eyes were full of tears.

“Oh! how much you must love me!” she
said, simply.

“ You are right, my darling. I love you far
better than I do myself; and I ask so little to
make me happy. You will not refuse it, Katha-
rine ?”

«é No.”

He pressed her hand to his heart—to his lips
—to his tearful eyes, and then resigned it.

CHAPTER XIV.
“Upon a simmer afternoon,

A wee before the sun gaed doon,
My lassie, in a braw new goun,

Cam’ o’er the hills to Gowrie,
The rosebud tinged with morning shower
Blooms fresh within the sunny bower,
But Katie was the fairest flower

That ever bloomed in Gowrie.”

—Scoron Sona.

Kitty, overpowered by her own conflicting

 
sa

feelings, and the strangeness of her situation, |

received this first overt act of homage on the
part of the captain in passive silence.

“There,” said he, “that is my first and my
last caress. Oh, this is Heaven, indeed, after
the torture of last week! I could not keep
away any longer; I should have come to you
at all risks this afternoon.” -

“And I should have been far away—far on
my journey to the lakes.”

“ What was sending you there ?”’

_ She smiled and shook her head.

“You were going to get out of my_way ?”

“T was.”

“You have saved me a long journey, for I
should have followed you by the very next
train.”

“How foolish!”

“Perhaps—but I cannot help it. Ah, you
will never know the feeling I have toward you,
Katharine. I could work gladly as a servant in
yonder house, if I could be near yon in no other
wa’ ae ¢

“ Well, there will be no need of that if you
keep your promise. But, oh! remember how
far I am trusting you! If you should fail me.”

“You need not fear. Only say a kind word
to me now and then, and I will lie down con-
tented. This blessed calm! This sweet repose !
Katherine, it has been dearly purchased; but
I do not regret the agony now.”

“You will not let your sister know,” said
Kitty, after a pause.

“Of course not. No one need ever know ex-
cept our two selves. Trust to me, Katharine,
and you will find that all these fears are quite
needless and groundless, All will go on as
_ usval, except that we shall be happier, and
with a happiness that the world would never
understand.”

““ Well, I must go now,” she said, sighing.

_“ When shall I see you again?”

“T ennnot tell.”

“You must dine at the ‘Pines’ to-day. I
shall send Louisa over for you. Will you
promise ?”

“Yes.”

“ And after dinner you shall sing me some ot
those old ballads that I love so well; and then,
for a reward, I will read some poetry to you.”

“ Very well.”

“You say that so listlessly, so sadly. What
ails you, my darling ?”’

““Tsearcely know. But I feel in my heart
that this sort of formal arrangement which we
have entered into is all wrong. O George—I
wish we had never met!” And,the poor child
burst into a flood of bitter tears.

The young captain looked perplexed and al-
most angry as she spoke. He had been taking

reat credit to himself for having asked so little
rom her, and, looking upon life simply as a
thing to be enjoyed as much as possible: he

\

/

THE REJECTED WIFE; OR.

could not appreciate or understand those finer’
instinets of right and® wrong which troubled
Kitty so. So long as he committed no overt
act of sin, he could not see why this intimacy
should end; and he was half inclined to rebuke
her for her scruples more sharply than she
might have liked. But her tears melted him,
and he flung himself at her feet in an agony of
remorse and grief.

‘“‘For Heaven’s sake don’t ery, Katharine,” he
exclaimed. ‘ Don’t shed one tear for me, I am
not worth it! If this really makes you so un- |
easy and unhappy, I will go away to-day, and
never ask to see you again—never write to you
—anything—everything, rather than see you
suffer !”

She smiled sadly upon him through her tears.

“T fear it is too late now, George,” was all
she said, as she turned away. ‘

He walked aa far as the-house porch with her.
Kitty’s maid, passing through the hall just a8
they bade, each other good bye, looked out
through the glass door, and drew her own con-
clusions as to the relations existing between
them. It was not her place to speak of such
things, however, except in the servants’ hall.
And there, I can assure you, she made good use
of her tongue, and a conclave of servants sab
solemnly discussing the affair with closed doors
below, while their mistress. brooded over it in
the silence of her chamber, and the captain
chewed the same bitter cud of reflection as he
‘smoked his cigar upon the lawn before his un-
cle’s house. 4

“ All wrong—all wrong!” Yes, it was quite
true—that pathetic exclamation of Ki ty’s-
She stood upon the brink of a fearful gulf, and
saw its black depths dimly through her half-
averted eyes. Yet, surely, they were not so
hopeless or so near. Surely the brink was nob
yet crumbling beneath her feet! She had no
thought of wrong—the attachment was inno-
cent enough in itself, only one which ‘the
world would not understand”. Fair young
reader, as you pause upon this page, let me
whisper one word of warning in your ear, Be-
ware always of things which the world will not
understand. They are, generally, also things
from which the angels would vail their grieving —
eyes—things which (speaking of them in that
sense) the inhabitants of heaven would no more
“understand” than would the unmereiful and
ancharitable dwellers upon this lower earth.

Kitty dined that day at the ‘“* White Pines”.
The quiet evening which the captain looked for-

ward to was, however, spoiled by the unexpect-

ed advent of some friends from town, who, find-
ing her absent, and being on intimate terms
with Mr. Conyers, took the liberty of following
her to his house. Louisa and her uncle wel-.
comed them most gladly. Kitty at least seem-'
ed to do so, and the captain waxed exceeding
wroth as he watched her talking away with the

 
A BROKEN LIFE.

greatest apparent interest to a young author,
who was lis own especial abhorrence.

“I should like to punch the fellow’s head for
him!” he muttered to himself, as he watehed
the pair. What business has he to look straight
into her eyes like that? And now he has taken
her fan—confound his impudence! Queer
taste she must have, too—but 1 suppose it is
because he writes. Any fellow that can hold a
pen properly, and do more than make his mark
With it, seems to interest her at once, or else—
which I am more than half inclined to believe—
8he is like all the rest of her sex, and likes the
lost comer best. They are flirting, fickle things,
these women, make the best of them.”

Having come to this sage conclusion, the cap-
tain devoted himself with might and main to a
pretty little literary widow, who had the repu-
tation of being the most fascinating and faith-
less creature in London. They were getting on
famously together, when the captain, looking
across to where Kitty sat, caught her eyes fix-
¢d upon him with a very peculiar expression.
How long she had been watching him, he could
ot say; but there was a smile of surprise and

‘| scorn playing around her lip that stung him to

the quick. He turned scarlet—got up hurried-
y—made some excuse to his pretty friend, and
walked away. Katharine’s contempt was not
precisely the reward he wished to earn.

He saw no more of her that evening, for she
went home early. But, after the company had
_ Yeturned to town, his sister told him a piece of
— Rews which was anything but agreeable. An
tmpromptu féte had been arranged between Kit-
ty and her friends. ‘Gan Eden” was to be
thrown open and filled with guests the very
hext day, and La Stella, the great singer, was
to be induced to honor the festival with her
Presence. At that piece of intelligence the
Captain fumed and fretted more than ever.

But, in spite of him, the fé/e took place ; and,
What was more, he went to it. Like most im-
Promptu things, it was a decided success. The
Quests were in their best humor and best attire.

he day was pleasanf—the sun condescended to
Shine—the repast upon the lawn was perfect in
its way, and La Stella first sang like a nightin-

- gale in the house, and then,indulged her partic? —

“lar friends with a ballad in the open air. As
_ they gathered around her, jesting and laughing,
After the song was over, the captain, standing
Moodily apart pulling his tawny mustache,
8aw a little white hand laid upon his arm. — It’s
Owner was Kitty, who stood beside him, radi-
nt in rose-colored muslin, smiling and happy
48 her guests. ‘
“ Sir Knight of the Doleful Countenance, she
Said, playfully, “why are you moping here ?
8 there nothing in this pleasant scene—these
Pleasant faces, to make you glad?”
._ He mutt-red something behind his mustache
about « public singers”, and confounded folly.

43

Kitty’s face changed.

“La Stella’s presence is an honor toome—to
us all,” she said, proudly. ‘“ You know that as
well as I do. And for the rest—cannot you
guess why this féte was planned?”

“ That Iam sure I cannot.”

“What if I had reason to believe our in-
timacy was remarked—commented upon ?”

‘Who dares? he eried, flushing up.

“ Hush! Don’t make a Don Quixote of your-
self for nothing. People are talking about us,
and will continue to do so, if we are so con-
stantly together, and alone.”

“ We are never alone.”

“ Louisa and your uncle count for nothin
in the eyes of the world. And, as I cannot af-
ford to lose my good name, even for your sake,
George, I have opened the gates of Gan Eden
once more to all comers. As one of a crowd
I may surely notice you without coming to
grief thereby.”

“T am exceedingly obliged to you,” was his
curt reply. “If you think I am going to be
noticed only as one of the crowd, you are vast-_
ly mistaken.”

Kitty laughed mischievously.

“George, how is it that men are always po--
lite to every woman except the women they care
most for? When you first knew me, you would
not have dreamed of being so rude.”

“Don’t laugh at me, Katharine.
ble ; I cannot bear it.”

“Then don’t be such a bear.
friends once more.”

He grasped the hand she held out, and was
about to speak; but she snatched it away, and
took refuge by the side of Miss Marchmont,
who made one of the group clustering around La
Stella upon the lawn. They were rallying the
actress unmercifully upon some stage-blunder
which she had made two years before at her
début, and she was laughing as heurtily as the
rest at its memory.

“ Ah, one grows wiser as one grows older,”
she remarked. ‘TI should not do that, now. I
should not do many things to-day that I did
then,” she added, with a momentary overshad-
owing of her bright, fair face.

“Yor instance ?” suggested Miss Du Bois, a
young lady-artist of no mean fame, who was a
personal and intimate friend of the singer.

La Stella looked at her and smiled.

“* You should not ask questions, or tell tales
out of school,” was all the reply she vouchsafed
to make. :

“Only one—just one. I have kept the se-
eret three whole days. Do take pity on me,
and let me divulge it now.”

“ As you please,” said La Stella,

“You give me leave ?”

“Certainly. I know of no seeret in which 1
am concerned which you can possibly get hold

I’m misera-

Come, be

laughing,

of.”

 
44

“ Remember, you have consented,” said the
mischievous girl, bursting with laughter. ‘ La-
dies and gentlemen, attention! La Stella is an
exquisite singer, a splendid actress, as you
know; but she is also something more which
you do not know. She is a full fledged—”

Rose!” exclaimed the singer, in sudden ter-
ror.

“ Authoress !”’ cried Miss Dubois, joyously,
before she could finish the sentence she had
commenced.

CHAPTER XV.

*¢ You tell me that my face is fair—

It may be sae, I dinna care—
But ne’er again gar’t blush so sair

As ye hae done afore folk.

Behave yoursel’ before folk,

Behave yoursel’ before folk,
Nor heat my cheeks wi’ your mad freaks,
But aye be douce before folk.”

—OLD Sone.

At this announcement, all eyes were turned
upon the singer.

“Tt is true, I assure you,” persisted Miss
Du Bois. “ I was in her dressing-room the other
morning, and found a most suspicious-looking
little roll upon her toilet-table, which I took
the liberty of peeping at; and I give you my
word, it was a genuine manuscript, ready for
the printer.”

“If that is the case, Rose, I shall take very
good care how I let you into my dressing-room
again,” said La Stella, laughing; but, at the
same time, looking as if she felt very much in-
clined to box her friend’s unfortunate ears.

The conversation dropped, and the group
around La Stella broke up and went their sev-
eral ways. Kitty, left almost alone with her
guest, was wondering timidly how she ought
to address her, when La Stella opened the
conversation herself, and in a most unexpected
way.
Pity dear Mrs. Oliver,” she said, “I wish to
speak to you a moment, and quite alone, if I
ma i,

“ Certainly,” said Kitty, looking not a little
bewildered. ‘We are quite alone here.”

“Yes; and don’t be offended with my first
question. Have you heard from your husband
very lately ?” 4

“Not for several months,” replied Kitty,
looking quite as angry as she felt. “ Pray, wh)
do you ask?’

The emphasis laid upon the pronoun made
La Stella smile.

«Forgive me,” she said, pak “I fear
you think me very rude; but I have only your
welfare at heart all the while. I ask, because
common report has blamed me for his depart-
ure, and most falsely. Dear Mrs. Oliver, I as-
sure you that I never spoke to him off the stage
in my life.”

“So I have been told,” said Kitty, gloomily.
“T had no more to do with his goings or com-

°

THE REJECTED WIFE; OR,

ings than the winds that blow. I came here to- |
day purposely to tell you this.”

“ You were very kind,” replied Kitty, still -
without looking up.

La Stella eyed her a few moments in silence,
A kind smile played around her lips. Suddeu-
ly she took both the young wife’s hands in
hers.

“Come,” she said, “let us befriends. I have ~
felt much interested in you ever since I heard
the particulars of this story ; I am not in the
habit of accepting invitations at a day’s notice,
as you may gness ; but when my friends told
me where they wanted me to go, I canceled all
my other engagements instantly, so that I
might see you. Cannot you confide in me,
dear Mrs. Oliver, now that [I am here ?””

Kitty was obstinately silent.

“T see,” said the singer, sadly, as she drop-
ped her hand, “you have other friends who _
are more to you than I can ever be. You have,
perhaps, some prejudice against me on account
of my profession, ané you cannot forget if.
Well, I will go.”

She was rising from her seat, but Kitty's hand
detained her.

“Stay ! Don’t think’me cold or unkind. This
is so unexpected that I hardly know how to
aiswer you. I need a friend, La Stella—be-
lieve me, I do.”

“T see it, I know it, I feel it.
friend to you, if you will let me.”

Kitty’s mute answer was a kiss, and they sat
in silence for a time

“ You see,” Kitty began, at last, “ it was hard
to be deserted, even though I was deserted fr
no other woman. I am very proud—I could
not bear that people should think me quite un-
able to win or keep a heart.”

“JT quite understand that,” said La Stella.
“Tt is hard to be deserted. I have felt it my-
self.”

‘“c You 7 ‘

Ton, bd?

* So beautiful—so gifted—so famous.”

“ Then I was neither of the three. I had no
gone upon the stage. I was only a peasant
maiden, singing my simple songs in my native
valley. The man I loved found me there. He
was struck with my voice; he took me away,
and defrayed all the costs of my education till —
I could sing almost as well as I can now.
owed that man everything—everything! Was
it strange that I learned to love him? And
he loved me, too, for a time, and I was to have
been his wife.” ;

She passed her hand hastily across her eyes,
and went on.

“He was an Englishman, and the death of
his father compelled him to return to his home
for atime. He left me with my mother. He
was to return for me before the year expired ;
but, Mrs. Oliver, before the time was over, h@

I can be that

 
 

   

had married another. I see him often now,”
She went on, with a bitter laugh: ‘he comes
With his wife to the opera every time I sing.
a | She is a duke’s daughter, and as beautiful as
| 8 dream. I do not say that I blame him;
ut my position was not a pleasant one at
first.”
| “How strange !” said Kitty. “If Ihad been
asked to point out a thoroughly happy person,
Tshould have selected you.”
| “Ah! every heart knows its own bitterness ;
4nd perhaps those whom we fancy the most free
om care are those most deeply bowed down
beneath its heavy band,” said La Stella, mus-
| Ugly. “None but God can know who is really
| happy upon this earth.”
| “But I heard that you were about to be mar-
| Med,” said Kitty.
j “So Iam,” was the quiet reply. ‘One can
_ | ®earcely afford, in these enlightened days, to
| Waste a whole life, as well as a whole heart,
| Upon a dream. I shall marry Signor very
| 800n. I have known him for several years ; he
| 38 the gentlest and most amiable of men, and I
| ope to be very happy with him. The first
| freshness and glory of life has gone, but enough
| Temains to make it worth my while to dare the
} Yenture. You will come to my wedding, will
| You not, my dear Mrs. Oliver ?”
4 es Yes.”
“ And now that I have told you so much of
{ Myself, can you guess why ?” asked the singer,
| %0oking straight into Kitty’s eyes. ‘hey fell,
| With a troubled expression, before the searching
- lance.
j “No. If you had any particular reason for
telling me this, I cannot guess it.”
| “I had three, Mrs. Oliver. First, to show
| You that I was not to blame for your husband's
} €parture ; secondly, to let you see that I had
| Suffered what you suffered when he went; and,
4 thirdly—now, you must not be angry—I told
| You my history in order that I might speak
Nore freely of your own. Do you understand
Me now ?”
7 “Speak out, La Stella.
| You wish to say.” s
j “T will, and it is this: Bitter as the lot of a
] eserted wife may be, there is a lot more bitter
| Still—that of a guilty one!”
There was a long pause. The red blood
| Mounted slowly Kitty’s temples. At last she
| looked up and said, haughtily :
_ “Why do you say this to me?”
“Beenuse you are human and a woman,” was
courageous reply. ‘‘ Because he who should
have guarded you from every danger has left
You to the worst fate that can befall you. Be-
 ause another, who has no right to do so, loves
| You dearly. And because, in some unhappy
| Moment, you may turn to that love for consola-
tion. For all these reasons I speak. I should
© no true friend if I held my peace.”

 

 

Say frankly what

 

 

 

 

 

 

A BROKEN LIFE. 45:

“Yes,” said Kitty, with a slight smile ; “ you
are quite right. Deserted though I am, I'am
still beloved !” Ne

“There lies the danger!” eried La Stella,
with passionate warmth. “Qh, do anything—
suffer anything, rather than keep that thouglit
in your mind.” ‘

But if it comforts me ?”

“So much the worse. Crush it—kill it while
you ean!”

“You misunderstand the whole thing; so I
do not mind telling you that what you say is
true. But the attachment to which you allude
is so pure, that its very purity alone is the joy
and consolation of my lonely life.”

“Poor child !—poor child But will it be al-
ways so ?”

“ Why should it not ?”

“Tt might—if you were both angels. As it
is, I have very serious doubts. And I beg, most
earnestly, that you will let my advice have sume
weight with you. I beg that you will give the
acquaintance up.”

But Kitty only smiled in answer to this affee-
tronate prayer.

“Do you know what is said of it among your
friends ?” asked La Stella.

“ No.”

“Tt is already commented upon very freely.
Some call it infatuation on your pars; others
give it a harsher name.”

“How can they taik so?” eried Kitty, with
tearful eyes; ‘and of me!”

“My dear, have you given them no reason 2”

“I have done nothing wrong.”

“God forbid that you ever should, my dear
Mrs, Oliver! But if a saint lived upon this.
earth, and gave the slightest cause for scandal,
there would be plenty who would seize upon it.
eagerly enough. Your case is no harder than
that of a thousand others. You have meant no.
harm, but you have placed yourself in an equiy-
ocal position, and people are only too ready to:
take advantage of it.’

“Tt is very unkind of them, I am sure,” sob-
bed Kitty. “I never harmed any one in my
life, and why should they say such dreadful
things of me?”

La Stella sighed at the hopeless task before
her. Kitty could not, or would not, see that
she herself had been to blame. She fancied, be-
cause she was innocent, that the whole world
must be aware of the fact, and could not under-
stand that people might take away her charac-
ter gayly, in the course of a morning call, with-
out feeling the least atom of ill-will toward her
personally. She listened, it is true, while the
singer talked; but she felt injured and oppress-
ed by every word that fell from her lips, and
was heartily glad when the interview came at
last to an end.

“Well, you are warned,” said Tia Stella, risini
from her seat. ‘“ And now that the ice is brokes

 
4

46 THE REJECTED WIFE; OR,

between us, perhaps you will not mind talking
to me about this from time to time. Whenever
you wish my advice or my assistance, it is yours.
Will you remember this?”

“Twill, most gladly.”

“ And we are friends ?”

“ Always.”

“That is well. Now, adieu for the pres-
ent” 7

She kissed her again as she said good-bye,
ani soon after left Gan Eden ia company with
Miss Du Bois and Miss Marchmont, at whose
house they were to dine.

Captain Conyers, who had watched from afar
the long interview with La Stella, came up with
a dismayed face as syon as she had gune, and,
gently insinuating himself into her vacant place,
asked, in his s»ftest voiee, what she had been
talking about. But Kitty positively snul/bed
him. It is ashocking thing to have to relate
of one’s heroine, but she was undeniably and
unmistakably cross; and the gallant captain
had made his advance at a most unlucky time.

“What can it possibly be to you ?” she asked,
as she sprang up from her seat.‘ I don’t know
that I am obliged to account to you for every
word I speak and every thought I think —as yet.
Tf you wish to know what we were saying, you
had better go and ask La Stella herself before
she leaves the grounds.”

And she shook out her pink flounces and
walked away, leaving him to pull his blonde
moustache, and mutter to himself after his fav-
orite fishion :

“By Jove! what a temper she has got of her
own. I wonder what La Stella has been lectur-
ing her about? A lecture it was, I am sure;
for both theit faces were as long as my arm,
and once I thought I saw Katharine erying.
Confound that singer! If she was a man, I
would call her out before sunset. What can be
up?”

Ah! captain, conscience was “up” — pride
was “up”, and dignity, and vanity, and folly,
and coquetry, and jealousy, for the moment,
were “down”. Nuver was his chance of success
so small as at that moment. If it only could
have lasted forever !

CHAPTER XVI.

“Yet oft, in his marble hearth’s bright glow,
He watched a picture come and go ;
And sweet Maud Muller’s hazel eves
Looked out in their innocent surprise.
And the proud man sighed, with a secret pain,
‘ Would that I were free again ;
Free, as when I rode that day,
Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay.’ ”
—Joun Gs W. Wuirtter.

It is not to be supposed that while Kitty and
her friends were at “high jinks” in England,
Mr. Oliver, in Paris, remained entirely in ignor-
ance of her doings. There are always plenty
of people who are only too glad to enlighten

an absent husband or wife as to the proceedings
of the “half” they have left behind them.
Good-natured Mrs, Grundys, at second-floor
windows, or garden-gates, are eager to watch
and report all they hear or see; and loungers
at the clubs (those hot-beds of scandal, where
reputations are torn so freely to tatters, that ib
is a wonder any of us have a rag left) spend
half their useless lives in getting their friends
into hot water, by means of the scandalous re-
ports and foolish tittle-tattle which pass current
there. One of these hatted and booted old gos-
sips thought proper to acquaint Mr. Oliver with
some little circumstance which he could not be

supposed to know; and, by that discreet’ act, |

brought matters to a focus with the most praise-
worthy rapidity. a

Mr. Oliver, just before that letter was received,
was sitting in his salon at the hotel in Paris, in
a most desponding mood. Although it was the
height of summer, the day was dull, dark, cold,
and dreary. The rain fell in a steady, hopeless
downpour. Nothing but the roofs and tronts
of stone houses could be seen from his high
window. Nothing was to be heard but the roll
of fiacres, and the street-cries that fell so harsb-
ly upon his English ears. The room where be

was sitting was resplendent with green and gold 5
with paneled, painted walls, half a dozen mit-
rors, and twice that number of fancifully deco-
rated clocks, not one of which agreed with the
other as to the flight of “the enemy”. The so-
fa on which he lounged was elegantly carved ;

the cushions of the softest damask, and the foot
stool, just before it, of green velvet, embroid-
ered with gold. Upon the marble hearth #
wood-fire snapped and erackled cheerfully, and
the fir cones, piled upon the logs, diffused @
pleasant odor through the room.
table, at his right hand, stood a breakfast serv-
ice of white porcelain, flanked by exquisitely
white rolls, a plate of ham garnished with sprigs
of green, and a dish of fruit temptingly serve

up in its own leaves. Taste, luxury, and com-
fort everywhere ; and in the hand of the lounger
his beloved Times. What more could an Eng-
lishman desire ? ’

Yet Mr. Oliver looked and felt strangely dis- '

satisfied with it all. He ate his breakfast surli-
ly, grumbled over the leading article, pished
and pshawed at the state of the money-market
and finally flung himself down upon the sofa i=
a wretched state of depression. An Englishmat
suffering from a fit of the blue-devils js, to me,
at once the most pitiable and the most \udierous
object in existence; an American in such @
plight may manage, by putting an unwonte
spice of energy into his movements, to work ib
off; a Frenchman will laugh, sing, or dance it
away ; but Johnny Bnil, attacked by the unl
versal enemy, lies down incontinently, so ridicu-
lously miserable, so comically cross, that he bes
comes, indeed, a spectacle for gods and men!

 

Upon the ©

ee eS te Ee aE Ee a EO RE a oS
| ished for want of aliment.

A BROKEN LIFE.

Suffering under this national disease, the au-
thor’s thoughts turned longingiy from the cold
Splendor of that gilded salon to the snug par-
‘ors, the cheerful grounds of his own English
home ; and Kitty, with her wild-rose face, the
- peasant-girl whom he had won for his

ride, and who had adorded her new station so
Well; how gently, how tenderly he thought of
her! His brief passion for La Stella had per-
She had scorned,
but Kitty had always loved him. He forgot,

| “as of a sudden the image, with all its old dear-

hess, rose visibly before his mind”; he forgot
how he had tired of the heart he had won ; how
tame home-scenes and domestic pleasures had
Seemed to him after their first novelty was over ;
e forgot his own coldness and carelessness, his
- Own selfishness, his own rudeness where his wife
had been concerned ; he remembered only her
goth, her beauty, her grace, and her love for
im, and fancied his late tenderness might make
amends for all that had passed. : 5
. “I suppose I must eat humble-pie for once
| 17 my life just at present,” he muttered to him-
| 8elf. “I shall have to ask her pardon, swear
that she is prettier than a thousand La Stellas,
Yow upon my knees that I love her better than
€ver, and then we shall be very happy again,
and go on all the better for this little tiff.”
Perhaps he was right ; for women are the most
€redulous of created beings where the man they
ave once truly loved is concerned. Other

8uitors might find it somewhat difficult to ex-

_ plain or excuse a temporary infidelity, but the
“king ean do no wrong’, and when the one love
Yeturns to his allegiance he is only too gladly
Welcomed. So it was quite possible that Mr.

| Oliver's dream of the future might be realized—

that he and Kitty might descend into the vale
| Of years as true a Darby and Joan as ever ex-
| ‘ted. But that blundering old busybody at
the elub had changed this possibility into an
Impossibility, and altered the lives and destinies
both; and the garcon entered at this moment
aring a letter for “Monsieur”—the letter
Which the modern Paul Pry had been at the
‘ouble to pen. It ran thus:
“My Dear Fertow:—‘Forewarned is forearmed’, so
old adage says, and I have been thinking for some
_ Weeks past that 1 ought to quote it to you. The fact is,
atters are getting serious, and some one ought to tell
uv how they stand. I mention no names, in case of this
€tter falling into other hands. I merely beg to say, that
fa man has a young and pretty wife, he ought not, in
hy humble opinion, to leave her by herself for months
atime. Being, as it were, deserted, she may think
Proper to console herself, for instance, by receiving the
attentions of a very handsome young captain in the
_ Guards. Women have done such things before now, as
Suppose you know.
rc itl hed a friend in this predicament, I should say to
im : ‘Come home and look after your wife, my good fel-
low, before it is too late! There is no use in shutting
© stable-door, etc. A word to the wise is sufficient,
Ood-bye, my dear fellow, and believe me, yours sin-
eerely, 7.

One can imagine the state of mind into which

47

the reception of this precious epistle threw Mr..
Oliver. Ali tender thoughts of home and of his
wife vanished at the sight of the first line, and
by the time he had finished its perusal, he was
almost frantic.

“Laughed at—sneered at by all Lonaon!”
he cried, stamping upon the jetter. “Old J
would never have written till it came to that!
And this is the woman I raised from a peasant’s
village to share ny home! She is ready to de-
sert me, and follow the first searlet-coated idiot
who says a dozen fiattering words in her ear!
She exchanges her humble name for one well
known and respected, only to make it a bye
word and a reproach for ever !”

You perceive, dear reader, that our friend’
was, for the moment, only fit to be classed with:
the associates of Lord Dundreary ; who (if ve
may believe that sapient nobleman’s state-
ments), are all “lunatics”. Mr. Oliver was
speaking unconsciously as if he had been a
scion of some royal house, or else the greatest
author the world had ever known. He was, in
reality, a man of no particular family—a clever,
but not a famous author; yet, if he had had
“all the blood of all the Howards” in his veins,.
and wielded the pen of Shakspeare or cf Mil-
ton, he could not have fancied himself more
deeply wronged.

“A farmer’s daughter! A poor, unlettered
peasant-girl!” he kept ejaculating, as he paced
up and down the room.

As if her being the daughter of a titled earl!
would have made the trouble lighter, the dis-
grace less deep and humiliating! But Mr.
Oliver “ dearly loved a lord ”—far more dearly
than he loved Kitty. While a man can remem-
ber anything to the disadvantage of a woman—
while he can say to himself, “ She lacks beauty,
grace, wealth, intellect”—he does not Jove her..
While he can compare her with others to her:
disadvantage, while he can regret a charm.
which she does not possess—while he can prefer
his own ease or enjoyment to hers, while he
can hesitate at any sacrifice, no matter how
great, for her dear sake—it may be affection,
attachment, esteem that he feels for her, but it
is not love! That sweet madness, when it
seizes hold upon a heart, purges it of all else:
except itself. Ruin, poverty, danger, and dis-
grace—they are as nothing while the being,.
fairer, and better, and more beautiful than any-
thing else on earth, smiles on. How many
people in the world do you suppose are capable
of feeling such a passion? Women sometimes
feel it, but far less fre uently, I imagine, than.
they have credit for yen —men, rarely, or
never! Six women out of ten will probably
balance the “ pros and cons” when they fane
themselves in love ; but eleven men and a hall
out of twelve, will certainly do so. It is quite,
as well for the world that this is so. Thes
frenzy fevers rarely fail to disturb the equilib.

« °

 
48

rium of society—rarely fail to destroy the bal-
ance of right and wrong. The oniy case I can
at this moment recall to mind, is a case in
peint. Look at Lord Nelson. He was ready to
ruin himself for a woman; but for his super-
human bravery, it is possible that he might
have done so! (I speak only of outward ruin—
of rain that the world acknowledges—not of
that inner destruction which God sees and re-
members.) How disastrous was that love!
What a constant struggle and agony must life
have been to those unhappy beings! There
was another soldier too, before him, who gave
%he world for a woman’s smile, and cousidered
it well lost. Was Antony the happier therefor!
No—-depend upon it, the general way is far the
best. We only come to deeper grief by these
deep passions. Is is far better to go through
life as most of us do, playing with the shadow
of love rather than falling into the burning
grasp of its dread reality. Better, far, to feel
that reasonable devotion which admits of diur-
nal mutton-chops, and porter, and cigars, and
does not interfere with sound sleep and early
rising, than to undergo the misery of that
wilder passion that pants, pale and sleepless,
beneath the stars, through a dreary waste of
years. Calm attachments, quiet domestic joys

—these suit our placid, sensible England best.

Mr. Oliver, lovins Kitty only in this general
way, and valuing his treasure the less because
it was his own, could yet feel terribly indignant
when any rash hand was stretched out to take
it from him. He devoted that unlucky captain
in the Guards to the vengeance of more gods
than ever existed in the heathen mythology—
he would start by the next boat for England,
and © have it out with him”, ete. In this mood
he left his hotel, to make preparations for his
immediate departure. But as iv generally hap-
pens that when there is any vital necessity for
our leaving a place instantly, something occurs
to delay us, so it chanced that one or two vex-
ing little things combined to keep our author
in Paris till the end of that week. His banker
was out of town for a few days—something
was wrong with his passport, and an obliging
emperor had not then dispensed with such
lateh-keys to “ La Belle France”. Consequent-
ly, there was no resource left him, except to
‘swear a little, and then wait patiently. ;

He improved the opportunity by writing a
fierce eo to his wife. There again he
showed a lamentable ignorance of woman's
nature, which he was accustomed to boast had
been his peculiar study so long, that he could
trace every action and thought of the pretty
dears to its hidden source. As if any one—
even the woman herself—ever yet understood
a woman! The Sphynx is a riddle to the
Sphynx, what then must she be to those who
gaze with curious eyes upon her? If Mr.

liver had said : “ My dear Kitty, mischievous

‘HK REJECTED WIFE; OR,

people have been trying to prejudice me
against you, but I don’t believe one word they
say, and am coming home by the next steamer
to tell you so, and to say that I love you!” the
matter would have been settled at once. She
would have received him with open arms. Bub
in the place of this brief and sensible epistle,
he wrote one of eight pages, wherein he charge
her with nearly every crime in the calendar ex-
cept murder and arson, and wound up with the
assurance that she had proved herself so utter?
ly incapable of behaving with propriety, he
should at once withdraw the liberal allowancé
he had made her, and compel her to feside
where and with whom he pleased.

Some women will forgive injuries, infidel —
ities, unkindnesses, slights, neglects, insults—
nay, even blows and curses ; but there are very
few who can forgive meanness, unless they ar@
mean themselves ; or if, by any chance, they aré
so wrought upon by considerations of charity
and duty as to forgive—they will not, becaus@
they cannot forget. To Kitty, especially, this
weakness (vice she called it) was abhorrent
She had been accustomed to say in her ow®
energetic fashion, that a mean man was capable
of committing any crime ; in fact, that he had
committed all crimes simply by being mean.

Money, in her inexperienced eyes, was sil0-
ply a golden medium of comfort and hap-
fo To see any one niggardly in its distr

ution gave her pain—to be stinted herself 12
its enjoyment after she had once tasted it, was |
torture. Consequently, it happened that a8 |
she read that insulting letter, though her cheek
burned and her heart beat high at every galling
word, she felt that in some faint measure sb?
had perhaps deserved them, and so held het
peace. But when she came to the end, shé
sprang from her seat as if the absent writer bi
struck her,

“He taunts me with my dependence upo?
him!” she cried out, turning deadly pale wit
rage and shame. “He dares to taunt me with
it, and to make it the means of my bumill
ation. He is right. I am dependent—to m:
shame be it said. With these two strong hands
that were used to work once, though they 1o0!
so dainty now—with these two active, ready feeb
—with this healthful young frame full of life aD
energy, I have sat down in idleness, and eate?
of that man’s bread, drank of his eup, till he
taunts me with the fact! Before I give hit
reason to say those words again,” she erie
with sudden savage energy, lifting her hands 0?
high, “I will beg, starve, die in the streets im

It was not a model speech I grant ; but min@
is no model heroine. “Only a woman”—
young, passionate, and faulty to a degre’
“Only a woman” who felt in some way 6
she had béen wronged, and made this decla
ration, which sounded in the silence, as solew®
as an oath. Kitty sat down at her writing-

 
 

desk. What did she do? Oh, only what all
my principal characters have been doing for
| some time back ; just the very thing she ought
| not to have done. She wrote a note to Captain
| Conyers.
| CHAPTER XVII.
4 «‘ Oh, for ane and twenty, Tam,
And hey, sweet ane and twenty, Tam!
Pll learn my kin a rattlin’ sang,
An I saw ane and twenty, Tam!”

 

—Burns.
Before she had finished sealing and direet-

(4) ing the letter, Miss Marechmont entered the

} room. She was in walking costume, held an

Open note in her hand, and was about to speak,

When the name upon Kitty’s envelope caught

her eye. She colored up,and then drew a

| chair close beside the writing-desk, and laid

| her hand upon the letter. : :

“My dear, will you forgive me if I say some

thing that will sound very impertinent? Don’t

| 8end that note.” F ;
“Why not, pray?” asked Kitty, turning
crimson, and putting on a defiant look.

“TJ eame here this morning on purpose to

| talk to you about him. Look at this, whieh I

| Teceived only half-an-hour ago.”

She laid her own letter before Kitty, whose

- €ye was first caught by these words:

, “Do persuade that pretty little friend of
Yours, Mrs. Oliver, to make herself a little less
Conspicuous with Captain Conyers. He is not

-}] Worthy to Jace her slippers—a mere eropty

headed fop, with no ideas beyond a uniform

‘| and his military duties. [t is a great pity to
See one so young and so fair, sacrificing herself

for such a popinjay ; and I think a word from
you who know her so well, would go very far
to stop the thing from becoming too serious.

Every one is talking about it, it is true, but if

| it ends here, it will be forgotten with the rest

| of the ‘nine-days’ wonders’ of this rattle-

_ brained Loudon.” ;

Kitty read the paragraph very quietly, and

; handed the letter back to Miss Marchmont.

| “Well?” was all she said. ee

is | ,. “1 beg your pardon, my dear, it is not well.

| You have no idea what Londoners are when

| they get upon the track of a choice seandal like
this, Considering all things, your youth and
eauty, Captain Conyer’s high position, and

Mr. Oliver’s strange and unexplained absence,

‘think you can hardly wonder that the gossips

| have at‘last fallen tooth and nail upon you !”

“Tet them,” said Kitty, indifferently.

| “My dear child, just consider what you are

| Saying. Come, you are hurt and grieved, and

-}) fam not surprised. But don’t be angry with

Me, or refuse to take my advice.”

| “* What is it ?”

“Write a nice little note to Mr. Oliver, and
np «| “Sk him to come back to you. Put your pride

} Sut of sight for once, dear Kitty, and remem-

      
  
 

1

5

8

i

g
@
im
@

d
p
b

b

  

   

  

A BROKEN LIFE.

49

ber that it is far nobler to forgive than to b
forgiven, any day. He will certainly come when
he knows you wish it ; and when he gets here,
don’t reproach him with the past, but kiss and be
friends, and make your happiness in the future.” |

Kitty’s nostrils began to dilate, and her dark
eyes to flash.

“Have you done?” she asked, quietly.

& Yass:

“Then hear me. The dearest wish of my
own heart is, that I may never look upon my
husband's face again. I loved him déarly—
how has he returned, or even prized that loye?
I gave him all I had to give—youth, beauty (if
you call it so), innocence, and perfect trust.
Was he worthy of the gift, then? Has he shown
himself worthy of it, since? He has disgraced
and insulted me publicly, and now you wish me
to cringe to him, and beg him to return. I will
die first!”

“ But, my dear—”

““No—don’t say it. Don’t let me hear any
more such special pleading from your lips,
Miss Marchmont. You know that you are
talking against your own convictions, when you
recommend this course to me. Why, you
would perish yourself before you would ever
stoop to win a man back who had deserted
you, as he has deserted me—ay, if he were
fifty times your husband!” '

Miss Marehmont could not help smiling at
seeing herself so thoroughly understood.

“We women certainly have a wonderful gift,
and read eaeh other as if we were so many
open books,” she said. ‘“ At the same time,

Kitty, you are better than I am, and what I
might do in such a ease is no fit precedent for
ou.” ox

“ But look at that!” burst out Kitty, flingin
down the letter from Paris. “ Read that, ae
see if I am so much to blame.”

Miss Marchmont obeyed; and I think if any
lingering tenderness had remained in her heart
for Franeis Oliver, these words would have
driven it away at once and for ever. Her first
thought was one of gratitude that he was not
her husband, and, therefore, she had no personal
cause to blush for him; her next was for Kitty.

“My dear,” she said, kindly, “it is very

hard for you to bear, and if it was not for your
own sake, I would not persist in my request.
But your position looks so false and so danger-
ous to me, that I can’t help still asking you to
receive him kindly when he does come, and so
show him that these terrible accusations are not
true.”
“T wish I was dead!” cried Kitty, passion-
ately. “I wish T had died before I had ever
seen that man! Why did he come to trouble
me in my quiet home? IT should have been
happier there than I can ever be here, and poor
William would never have left me as Mr. Oliver
has done,”

 
’

  

50

“ What is—is, and what must be—must be,”
said Miss Marchmont, availing herself of the
never-failing serap of philosophy with which
she comforted herself under the most untoward
circumstances. ‘‘ Come, Kitty, put as brave a
face upon the matter as you can. Mr. Oliver
will be here in a few days, and I will meet him
with you, and add my explanation to yours.
There is no use in regretting the marriage now
that it has taken place. You must make the
best of it, and of life. Oh, if you only knew
how many people, who have lost all hopes of
any great or real happiness here, are doing
that—making the best of life—and nothing
more !”

She sighed as she spoke, but Kitty, absorbed
in her own trouble, did not hear her—did not
think it possible that Miss Marehmont, rich,
and free, and single, could be sad. There
is nothing makes us so selfish as grief. We
exact sympathy on every side, and think our-
selves terribly ill-used if we do not receive it,
but we never dream of offering/it in return ;
never think of asking if the good Samaritan,
who is binding up our wounds, may have one
deeper and more painful still. Kitty was only
like all the rest of the world in this respect,
aud Miss Marchmont was too well used to such
neglect to mind it. These gay, sanguine, seem-
ingly light-hearted people bear their burdens
much more stoutly, and with much less public
outery, than those upon whom trouble seems to
lay the heaviest hand. Which suffers most ?
Have we not always been told that wounds,
bleeding inwardly, are the most dangerous of
their kind ? ;

For nearly an hour, the two friends talked,
going over every feature and incident of the case,
from the first meeting in the New Forest to that
very day. And still Miss Marchmont’s advice was
the same. “ Wait till Mr. Oliver comes ; meet
him kindly, and all will yet be well.” It was
not, as Kitty had so truly said, the course she
herself would have adopted under gueh cireum-
stances. But she felt too deeply the responsi-
bility rang upon her as the young wife’s
nearest friend, to counsel any other. However
unhappy her home might be, Kitty, she
thought, was not fit to face the world alone.
In fact, as matters stoud at that moment, there
seemed an infinite danger of her facing it in
company with Captain Conyers ; and that must
be prevented even at the cost of anv comfort,
peace, and happiness.

_ The afternoon was waning when Miss March-
mont took her leave, fanyeing that her point
was gained, and that Kitty was saved for the
time being. Alas! that I should have to relate
such a thing; scarcely was her back turned,
before the note which had been the primary
ciuse of this long debate, was on its way to
Captain Conyers. Kitty, having dispatched it,
ate her dinner sans ceremonie ; then going up

THE REJECTED WIFE; OR,

  

into her dressing-room, made a most ravishing
toilet. For whom?

She descended to the library just as the sun
was setting. The fresh evening breeze rustle
the vines at the window, and played with the
eurls that hung Joosely upon her neck. She
gathered a flower as she passed the vase upoB
the study-table, and stood, touching it lightly
against her lips, while she waited. Again—for |.
whom ?

The hall-door unclosed; there were voices
outside. She hstened, smiling, without turning
round. Then the library-door opened softly,
and some one entered. There was an instant’s
pause, and still she smiled on, and would not f
turn her head. Her hand was taken in one —
that trembled violently; she turnéd, looked
down—and Captain Conyers was kneeling ab
her feet !

  
  
  
   
    
  
   
 
   
   
  
 

CHAPTER XVIII.

“ Some said that it was a siren
Who had left her emerald hollow, — |
To lure such as these to follow,
Through all dangers that environ,
To her home amidst the surges,
For she hates man—does the siren.”
—W TxHornsurY.

Within that library, and just opposite Kitty’s
seat, bung a picture.

A lonely mountain tarn, waveless and tide
less, dusky and deep in the shadow of its banks
pellucid and chill in the open light, and covere
ed over witl the white blossoms of water-lilies«
She knew not what region gave birth to the
painter's fancy. It was her impression that —
neitner Scottish hills nor English lowlands
boasted of such a placid spot. She imagined,
rather, that. the rugved, heathery hills in the
background, and the rush-edged margin of the
shore, belonged of right to a Jand in which
painters and poets are apt to lose them-
selves—the land where strange figures meeb
the eye, and strange musie falls upon the ears
where at one turn you meet Ali Baba in his |
woodman’s dress, and at another come upon
fairy princess, as she walks, at evening, in the
“Island of Calm Delights”. To that land be

 
  
 
 
  
   
 
    
  
  
   
  
   
    
  
  
   

OS Ee OP as OT ee Dy Breed os ig ee ee ee ee

  
   
  
   
 
  
  
   
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
   
 

longed the gray, neutral tint of the night-sky— | 5;
the one cloud hanging above the hills—the pale b
erescent moon mounting slowly in the heavens: |»
deserted by ber court of stars, and dreaming |g,
sadly of the false Endymion. Above all, that | k,
land couid claim a figure in the foreground, | of
from which the picture took its name: “Th@ | -
Spirit of the Water Lily.” Gracefully shé p
floated out from the shadow into the pale moot |},
light, among the flowers, enveloped in a gauZY

vail, through whose soft folds the undulaiing m
curve of every Jimb could be distinetly tracedi | 1,
one hand playing with the water, the othe! le;
holding a yem-like cluster of lilies (whose wide Ve
petals and dark green leaves sent a shower ¢ an
drops down upon her white shoulder and ov | my,

x

    
 

 

stretched arm) above her head. Lilies twined
about her limbs and blossomed at her feet—
lilies touched her gauze-vailed breast, more
pure and white than they—lilies starred the
rippling masses of brown hair that fell over her

| shoulders. She was gazing out from the pie-

ture with the softest and saddest of brown eyes ;
her brow was that of a queen ; her lovely mouth
half smiled, but with a smile that only comes to
human lips after the heart is broken. Some-

. thing in her aspect suited well the dim repose

of the scene, the lonely hills, and the quiet sky,
She was an Undine, leaving the world that bad
Vetrayed her, and sinking down, after one last
look, through the green depths of the sea, to

| her expectant sisters.

That picture ranked in the list of Kitty’s
household gods. She had purchased it at a
City auction, getting it at so lowa price that
she was almost ashamed to pay it. She had it
- Mounted after a fancy of her own—white and
gold lines inclosed the sombre canvas, and in
their turn were framed in polished black. It
hung above her writing-table, in the vine-shad-
ed st dy sacred to herself; and it was her cus-
tom, as she paced up and down the room in the
twilight, to stand long before it and muse. The
“Spirit of the Water Lily” was no spirit at
Such times, but a woman ‘like herself, who
Smiled her moonlight smile, and spoke, in her
Teed-like voice, of secrets which only she and
Kitty knew, I fancy some matter-of fact reader

a Will langh at what I am going to say: she

a grew, at last, to regard her as a kind of shadowy
friend—dead to all others, but alive to her—
quiet upon her watery bed all day, yet sum-
| Moning reality of expression to her eyes at
| Night—feeling glad when she rejoiced, and suf-
fering jf she was sad. She even talked to her at
times; the taking away of that picture would
| have left a terrible blank in her life. If any
| One thinks her a fit candidate for Bedlam after

_ this avowal, I cannot help it—it is made.

The yellow light of the moon shone softly on
| the canvas, the same light trembled on the
| Vines and flowers outside. She leaned aguinst
| the open casement and looked out. What a
-} Sight! What an earth! If it could be so fair
} below, oh, what would Heaven be! Moonlight,

, Music, youth, and love (for that always ends the

Catalogue), yes, they were all there. The
| Kneeling form at her feet—the trembling grasp
—fhber hand. What did they mean but that ?
That man and woman loved each other,
- Purely as yet, but only God could tell how long

iat would be.

They had met too late, and in those words
May be told the story of many a wrecked life
esile theirs. What was to be done? To
“ave them to each other's society—that would
| %@ to plunge two souls into a bottomless pit of
| ®nguish, and remorse, and crime. Some one
| Xust watch them zealously. Some one must

 

A BROKEN LIFE. 51

keep them from plunging into the gulf upon

whose edge they stood. A thankless task!

Upon the window’s edge lay an open volume
of “ Byron’s Poems”. A light breeze fluttered
the leaves of the book. Kitty looked down a
moment, then a peculiar smilie stole across her
lips, as she read:

“ Heigho ! ’tis evident we’re made of clay,
And harden unless kept in tears and shade,
This fashionable sunshine takes away
Much that we err in losing, I’m afraid.
I wonder what my guardian angels say
About the sort of woman I have made !”

The last words checked her—she read them
again more siowly—and then considered, look-
ing up toward the calm night-sky, as if she saw
the faces of those grieved angels there. Perhaps
she did. Perhaps they shaded her with their
white wings one moment, and whispered in her
ear; she looked as if she was struggling with
herself: she half rose.

But the trembling hand, grown stronger now,
detained her, and the low voice said :

“ Do not leave me!”

She hesitate —lingered—and listened. From
that moment all became like an opium dream
to her.

The night was hot. In spite of the bright
moon, there was thunder in the sky, and the
air oppressed her. She sat with her face turn-
ed toward the window, wrapped in a trance-like
Janguor that was far too delicious to lose by a
movement orathought. Faces passed before
her that she had not seen for years—voices
spoke that had long been silent in the tomb—
flowers bloomed that had faded and been forgot-
ten—songs were sung that she had never thought
to hear ayain. Even her husband was forgot-
ten: she was a girl once more, and hap
among those who had made the brightness of
her girlhood’s years,

From this Elysian trance she came by de-
grees into a state more akin to her usual one;
but still the dark clouds chased the wan moon
about the heavens, ever and anon rushing upon
her and hiding her from the face of the earth.
Strange fancies crossed the young wife’s mind
—a tale she had been reading that day, a wild
story about a haunted house, a murdered man,
anda lonely ehurehyard on the hill, got posses-
sion of her. Suddenly she heard a step in the
hall, another and a lighter one followed it, then
came the murmur of voices, low, but quite dis-
tinct.

“I cannot—I cannot—do not urge me,”
sobbed one, and then the deeper one chimed
in:
“ All is lost now. There is no time for seru-
ples. You must follow me.”

Was that the spirit of the murdered man?
Had he come up the lonely road at midnight?
Would he drag back the murderer to the
churehyard with him? She had forgotten if
the story said so; she remembered, though,

 

moreno agape

ee

 
52

that there was a winding stair inside the house,
and how it turned, and turned, and turned;
then she was trying to follow its mazes, till her
head whirled, and yet she could not see the
bottom step. What next?

A pleading, tearful outery—then a low voice
saying, urgently :

“Hush! For God’s sake !””

And then steps stealing lightly toward the
door—a breath of fragrance from the flowers
outside—and all was still. A dull conscious-
ness that some one wanted her—that some one
had called her name, seized upon her ; and yet
she felt powerless to stir. It was so delicious
to sit, neither asleep nor awake, and watch the
night! By-and-by she heard the soft plashing
of oars in the water under the window, und she
began to think of a long summer’s day she had
spent once in a boat just outside the shore-line
at Christ-church. She could see the bright
sunshine, the blue waves, the clear bottom of
the beach as she rocked up and down near the
shore, could feel the soft west winds also, and
hear the sailors singing on the ships as they
passed far out at sea. The sound of oars
grew fainter—she mustered energy enough to
lift her head, and saw a boat rapidly crossing
the bay. A flash of lightning came, and a dark
cloud passed over the moon.

 

Out of that strange state she awoke, feverish
and parched with thirst, and with a dull, dizzy
pain in her head. What was the matter? The
captain was no longer kneeling at her feet, but
bending over her, and wildly adjuring her to
speak to him. She put her hand feebly to her
head, then a sudden thought struck her.

She went up into her bedroom and took a
wine-cup, which still stood upon the table, and
raised it to her lips. A few drops still re-
- mained. She could discern both the taste and
smell of laudanum. Just before leaving her
room she had tasted that wine. It had been
drugged. By whom?

She went back to the library, feeling fright-
ened and confused. The captain was still there,
pacing to and fro like a madman. He ran to
her as she entered, and fiung his arms around
her.

“ Kitty, my love, my darling, what does all
this mean? What ailed you just now? You
were so white and still. You looked as if you
were dead, and you would not speak to me.
Are you ill?” .

“Some one placed a cup of wine upon my
dressing-table,” she said, in a strange, hoarse
voice. “I tasted it before I come to you, and
then my senses seemed to leave me. I have jusk
been back to my room, and that wine was full
of laudanum. O George, what does it mean?”
she faltered, clinging to him in sudden terror.

Now, the simple truth was, that Kitty’s house-
keeper was ill, and that the lady’s maid had un-

THE REJECTED WIFE; OR,

  

   
  

dertaken to give her a soothing-dose. To make
it more palateable, she put it into a glass of
port wine. Having to carry it up-stairs, she
stopped on her way to do something to Kitty’s
evening-dress, and left the glass upon the toilet- _
table. When she went for it, the wine was half
gone, and not daring to confess her blunder,
she left it where it was, and made haste to pro-
eure afresh draught for her friend. At that —
very moment she was trembling in her own ~
room, at the thought of the dire consequences
which might ensue from her carelessness. The
captain knew nothing of all this, and rushed to
a conclusion which frightened Kitty half to
death, and favored his views more than any-
thing else could have done.
““My love,” he said, “they are trying to
pe you. Your husband, no doubt, is at the
ottom of this vile plot. You must not stay |
another day in this house. Fly with me, my —
darling, you will be safer anywhere than you |.
are here.” f
Bewildered, terrified, and confused, Kitty
made little resistance. He drew her gentl
away, his heart beating high with love an
triumph. He flung a searf around her and
over her head. He laid his hand upon thé
doer. It was flung abruptly open at that in-
stant, almost in his face, and Miss Marchmonb
entered hurriedly, followed by La Stella!

   
  
  
  
  
    
 
  
   
  
 
  
  
  
  
 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
   
 

 

 
  
 
 
    
 
  
    
  
   
   
   
 
  
 
 
   
     
   
  
   
  
  
   
  

CHAPTER XIX. :

“ The madmen run but faster, ‘
Evil led and evil seeking ; ti
Caring not for wife or maiden,
Caring not for child or master. Ww)
All their hope is on the siren, je
Could they struggle on but faster.” | tri

—W. THORNBURY. | fy
A more awkward situation could not well b@ ;
imagined! The flying pair started asundel hs
with an explanation on the part of the captaid thi
that sounded suspiciously like an oath. Lé@ he;
Stella seemed to have hard work to keep from wa
laughing, deeply as she felt the serious turn the |
affair had taken. Miss Marchmont locked thé | A
door and put the key in her pocket. a a
“ We are not too late,” sheremarked. “Thank | ~~
heaven for that.” ’ aa tha
The captain looked askance at Kitty. Het | op,
position was humiliating ; but his was worse Boon
it was ludicrous! To attempt to run away «
with your frieud’s wife, and to have that elop& ds
ment nipped in the bud by the unexpected Be te
ppearance of a professional and a literary stats | thay
and to have one of the ladies coolly lock you Ace
up, while she is arranging the heads of her com | 4, ;
ing lecture in her own mind, while the othe | thor
bites her lips, flourishes her handkerchief, 42 ; ~K
looks preternaturally grave, yet cannot hide het T
laughing eyes. Is it not enough to put ap With
man out of temper with them—out of concel | ron
with himself? Certainly, the captain looke€ | 4.1

  

furious enough at being thus caught, like a rate

    
   

qt

 

| With

in a trap. But, under all the circumstances, he
could not order the ladies to restore the key,
and leave the room and house. He devoutly
hoped Kitty might do so; but, after the first
instantaneous feeling of surprise and anger, she
looked singularly meek, and, moving still farther
away from him, leaned against .the table with
downeast eyes.

“Not too late,” repeated Miss Marchmont,
with a satisfied smile, when she found she was
to have it all her own way. ‘ Kitty, my poor
child, you ought to go down on your knees,
and thank the kind Providence that sent us
here, to keep you from committing such a folly
—such a crime.” ; .

_ Kitty was silent, but her lips quivered.

“J will not ask how far you are to blame in
this deplorable business,” continued Miss
Marchmont. ‘I am sure you have been per-
suaded, coaxed, and entreated to take this step
by one who ought to have been the first to save
you from it.” ;

“Meaning me, madam, I suppose,” said the
captain, who was by this time at the boiling-
point.

‘Meaning you, of course,” she answered,
Coolly. “Do you think La Stella or myself
have had a Gadd ta urging the child on to her
ruin ?” :

“‘May I beg to know how Miss Marchmont
fame to be so well-informed about the move-
ments of her neighbors ?” he asked, with a sneer.

| “Certainly. I have not the slightest objec-

tion to tell you. I was here this afternoon
With Kitty, and we talked about this very sub-
ject, and about you. After I left her, some
friends of mine called at the ‘Growlery’, and
in the course of conversation mentioned that
79 were on the point of leaving for the Con-+
inent at once. I feared that Kitty might hear
this rumor, and do something, in her loneli-
hess and unhappiness, of which she would after-
ward repent. So I came over here to tell her
myself. At the gate, I met La Stella, who was
Coming to call, and we entered together. The

| Test you know.”

“T do, indeed, and can only regret, madam,

{ that you should have taken such a vast amount
} °f trouble for one so utterly unworthy of your
-Condescension.”

“ Who is that—Kitty ?”

“T was speaking of myself.”

“Indeed! Well, don’t trouble yourself to
thank me for any pains I have taken on your

Account, Captain Conyers. I am afraid I must

e rude enough to say that I never gave you a

| thought. It was Kitty for whom I was anxious
_| Kitty, whom I was determined to save.”

The captain made a low bow, begged pardon
proud humility, and withdrew himself
from the group. Miss Marchmont, having fired
her broadside at him, walked up to Kitty and
Put her arm gently around her waist.

A BROKEN LIFE,

53

“Yes, it was Kitty whom I tried to save.
My poor child! I can’quite understand how you °
came to think of this mad act. You felt as if
you were quite alone in the world—as if no one
eared for you but him, and you were going to
fly from the unhappiness that surrounds you on
every side here.”

Yes, it is true,” sighed Kitty, and-her head
dropped till it rested on the friendly shoulder,
and the tears began to come. No one could
have called Miss Marchmont cold or hard, who |
had. seen her bending over that hidden face,
that drooping form, with the tenderest and
deepest sympathy a woman’s heart could give.

“Tt was natural enough, Kitty—natural
enough. But I doubt if you would have been
happier. A sinful heart was never yet a light
one. A sinful life is never free from care.
You are better here with us, Kitty, than you
would have been abroad with him. And, after
all, happiness is not what we are to look for in
this world : it is the crowning glory of the next.
Here, Kitty, we have to do our duty, be it
pleasant or unpleasant; and the very doing it
will bring, in time, its own reward. Now, your
duty is—do you know what it is, Kitty ?”

“Oh, I cannot give him up—I cannot!” said
Kitty, raising her head and looking at her
lover with streaming eyes. ‘“ Don’t ask me to
do that. He has been so kind when every one |
else was cold and hard. The thought that he
loves me is the only thing that helps me to
bear this weary load of life. Mr. Oliver has
left me. You know he hates me—but George
—George loves me better than any one else on
earth. Don’t send him away !”

It was weak—it was childish—it was wrong.
But the appeal burst so naturally and so inno-
cently from the sorrowful young heart, that Miss
Marchmont’s eyes filled with tears, and La Stel-
la turned away her head. As for the captain,
he would have thrown himself at Kitty's feet
at that instant, but Miss Marchmont prevented
him; and there was something in her look and
manner that showed she would not be trifled
with. «

“Tf you really love her,” she said, signifi-
eantly, “ show it now.”

“Tn what way ?”

“She gave him the key, and pointed to the
door. The captain glanced at Kitty, who had
hidden her face once more upon Miss March-
mont’s shoulder, hesitated an instant, then, in a
paroxysm of powerless fury, he dashed the key
upon the floor, passed through the French
window, that opened on the lawn, and disap-
peared behind a flowering mass of shrubs.

This sudden and unexpected deliverance sim-
plified matters wonderfully. When be had
gone, Kitty became more reasonable. She
listened to arguments and entreaties of her
two friends—with tears it is true, but still she
listened. She owned that she had been in the

J

\
\

 
 

 

54

wrong ; and when a woman can do that, I think
there are really great hopes of her. But at the
same time she declared, with the greatest ener-
gy, that she hated her husband, and she wished
that she was dead! Life seemed so long, so
weary, so full of trouble, the poor child eried !

“That is an old complaint, Kitty ; a very old

_ one,” said Miss Marchmont, as she rose to go.
“T don't know that we can alter that for you
—but to be good, and then it will not matter
how sad life may have been, so that all is
bright at death. Take some one for your
model who has gone through much suffering,
and borne it like a hero—or like a Christian,
which is better—and see if you cannot do the
same.”

“T will take you, then,” said Kitty, looking
up into her face, with one of those strange
glances that sometimes startled those who knew
her best.

Miss Marchmont started and flushed up—
but recovering herself, said, sadly : “ No, I can
be no guide—no example for you, dear Kitty.
We have both been wrong, and my own life
has been a wretched and useless one. I cannot

oint to one good or noble deed I have ever

one. Take warning by me, and live for others
beside yourself. Follow La Stella’s example—
she has been happiest of us all. It has all been
‘vanity of vanities’ for you and I so far. But
I have your promise, that you will live dif-
ferently. And in heaven nothing is vain.

Tell her so, La Stella! You know it even bet-
ter than I.”

Leaving the two friends together, Miss March-
mont returned to her own home. She was in
a singularly-discouraged and despondent mood.
As she sat alone in her study, recalling the
events of the evening, her head drooped, her
eyes grew dim, and her face looked weary. It
seemed so dark—so dark in the future for her,
and for those who were dear to her. It was an
hour of utter despondency—an hour which the
greatest of living poetesses described only a
short time before her death, in words that will
find an answer in every feeling soul :

“ Tired out we are, my heart and I.
Suppose the world brought diadems
To tempt us, crusted with loose gems
Of powers and pleasures? Let it try,
We scarcely care to look at even

A pretty child, or God’s blue heaven,
We feel so tired, my heart and I.”

 

CHAPTER XX.
“ As when a soul laments, which hath been blest,
Desiring what is mingled with past years,
In yearnings that can never be express’d
By sighs, or groans, or tears;
“ Because all words, though culled with choicest art,
Failing to give the bitter and the sweet,
Wither beneath the palate, and the heart
Faints, faded by its heat.” —TENNYSON.

Kitty was looking for something which was
“Rot to be had, save at the expense of such tri-

THE REJECTED WIFE; OR.

    
   
  
 
  
  
    
    
   
  
  
   
  
 
   
  
  
 
 
 
  
  
   
   
   
    
 
 
  
 
  

fles as honor, virtue, peace, and happiness
Mind, I do not for a moment say that she had
one deliberate thought of wrong in her foolish —
little head. She did not intend to be wieked— |
she did not mean to singe her wings; she only —
fluttered around the flume, foolish moth that
she was, and admired its beauty, pined after its
warmth—that was all. ;

She had no business to think of, or to wish |
for, any love except her husband’s. I know that
dear lady, as well as you, and will eleerfully —
throw the second stone at this erring sister,
you will but lift the first. But she was young, )
she was lonely, and she was idle; and idlenes#
are the two parents of mischief. Did she lové |
this man who was trying to win her? I do nob
think so. She tried to persuade herself thab
she did, for her heart felt as empty as a “ last”
year’s nest”, and she longed to till it again—

with something—anything—so it was but filled» | in
But she had once loved her husband with fo
every pulse and fibre of that lonely heart. -°
However this may be, and however Kitty |
may really have felt toward her new friend, sh@ | =
certainly wished him to love her. There spoke | °°
the pride of the proud, deserted woman, which | |
must be appeased, at whatever cost. .
She paced up and down the lonely libraryr I
with folded arms and gloomy brow. She was 4 th
struggling desperately with the weakness that
threatened to enslave her for the second tim |
Nothing but immediate flight could save het» he
and yet she lingered, dreading the hour of de Sh
parture—ah, she well knew why ! _
Only one month had passed since she meb | ‘A
Captain Conyers, and the events that had for |_|
lowed in quick succession might well have pre- | wy
served her from any return of the old unhap- | yy
py passion. Yet, day after day, she had bee?
beside him, drinking in the music of his yoie® | .
and feeling her sorrow more than half-lightened * ‘
and removed by the tearful glance of his beat” |
tiful eyes, or the kindly pressure of his hand- | Pre
She thought of the future—of the happy futur? | 8re
he had sometimes dared to picture when they | eeu
were alone. Only as the wife of this ma? |
could she fulfill it; his wife she could never b& | he
Since, then, it was in vain for her to hope fof | au
such happiness, was it not wrong and erimin® | yes
in her to risk her future peace by thus remail” ts
ing near him? a Un
“Wrong? Yes. Iama weak and coward!) | tinh
fool!’ she exclaimed. i +) e
And, pausing before a fine portrait of Cap} 1"
tain Conyers, which was lying on her writingi | "
desk, she looked at it long and steadily. if
“For the last time!” she thought to herse}* tng
“This is my last hour of weakness. Let m? | P e
tell myself once more that those eyes will nev | “ti
smile on me ; those lips never meet mine a3* | ta
would have them ; and then back to my dutie® the

I must forget him, and I will! And yeh
George, I doubt if any other woman will ev
    

fove you as truly and tenderly as I could do if
s I migit, or if I dared. Oh! why has fate come
j | between us like this! Wealth and fame are
1» | Nothing to me now. I would gladly resign
, doth, so I might be happy, and with him!”
a She sighed heavily, and turned away. A
¢ | 8oftened splendor trembled in her eye as she
3 | passed slowly down the room. She paused

upon the threshold, gave one last, lingering
| look at the portrait that looked so calmly upon
er sorrow, and Jaid her hand upon the latch.
t was opened from without ; and, as she stood
-} aside to let the intruder pass, La Stella en-
, tered.
The beautiful face of the singer was very
- grave and sad. She had come to make a last
| 8ppeal to her friend, which she hoped might
_ €ave her. Words she knew were almost vain in
8 case like this; but she had that to enforce
her words which might impress the most head-
strong nature—the most hardened heart. Her
first glince at Kitty told her that she had
| found her in a pliable and hopeful mood.

““My dear,” she said, gently, “I have taken
the liberty of ordering your carriage, and I
ope you will not refuse to go out with me.”
Kitty shrank back with a look of pain.
“Don’t ask that, La Stella. I feel too un-
F happy—too broken down. I should not eare if
r never went out of these grounds again till
zy they carried me in my coffin.”

“T do not want you tosee any of your friends,
My dear; but a poor girl whom I have known
or some time is dying, and has sent for me.
| She can only live a very few hours. Kitty, I
Want you to see her before she dies.”

Kitty was leaving the room, but stopped
upon the threshold. Some tone in the speak-
| €r’s voice struck her strangely.

“Why do you wish me to go?” she asked.
The color mounted to La Stella’s face, but
| She answered frankly : :

; “My dear, she is as young, and was once as
| pretty as you. She was in a great danger, was
| greatly tempted, and she fell. I thought if you
| tould see her—”

| “That I should repent—reform—take care of
| myself, and be good girl!” exclaimed Kitty,
| haughtily. “I won't go a step! And yet—
7 Yes, I will.” oe

She ran up to her room, came down within ten
Minutes dressed for her visit,and they drove away.
Up through the fresh, green country-rouds, into
the very heart of the hot and dusty city;
| through street after street of wretched houses—
whose inmates, gaunt, squalid, and hollow-eyed,
| gazed after the carriage with a dull and list-
| less curiosity — they went, until they entered
| the most disreputable thoroughfare of all,
known to its denizens and to all London by the
' lame of the New Cut; and during the drive,

Stella told, in her pretty, foreign idiom,
the story of the girl they were going to

 

     
   
  
   
   
  
  

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one

hg en ee

ate ho, ee

> er er ee ee er

pigs oe ee

 

A BROKEN LIFE.

55

see; and Kitty listened, taking the haggard
men, the degraded women, the squalid ehildren
she saw on either side of the street as living
commentaries on the warning text.

It was a sad—a warning tale; but the name
of the betrayer was not mentioned. And the
poor girl was dying when they reached her, so
that Kitty had no time to ask it.

When all was over, the two friends left the
house in silence. Kitty did not speak all
through the homeward drive. La Stella was —
also silent, but she looked perplexed and puz-
zled, as if she was studying how best to fulfill
another and a still more painful duty. Kitty,
looking up as they entered the gates of ‘ Gan
Eden” once more, caught that peculiar expres-
sion. In an instant she flushed crimson, and
turned deadly pale.

“La Stella,” she said, faintly, “ there is some-
thing which you have not told me yet. Poor
Jenet’s ase was not quite like mine; she was
not married. Why did you take me there, and
what was the name of the man whom she first
loved ?”"

“That is just what I wish to tell you, my
dear. He was younger then than he is now.
He might have been thoughtless, as well as
eruel; I cannot say. But there is a packet
which she asked me to give him after her death.
Open it Kitty, and you wiil know bis name.”

“Kitty took it, sprang from the carriage, and
shut herself up in the library. She tore open
the parcel with wild and eager haste. A packet
of letters, a lock of brown and of golden hair,
braided together, and a miniature ease, fell upon
the table. She opened that case with trem-
bling hands, and then sank into a ehair, with a
bitter groan. It was a younger, a fairer face,
perhaps ; but it was the face of George Con-
yers ! —

CHAPTER XXI.
* Oh, wae’s me for the hour, Willie,
When we thegither met!
Oh, wae’s me for the time, Willie,
When our first tryst was set!
Oh, wae’s me for the loamin’ green,
Where we were wont to gae ;

And wae’s me for the destinie,

That gart me luve thee sae !””
—MOorHERwELL,

When the first shock of the discovery had
passed away, and Kitty was herself once more,
she took up that fatal portrait, and compared
it with the one which Captain Conyers had
placed in her hand only one little week before.
There could be no doubt remaining. One was
aslender and graceful boy; the other, a bronzed
and bearded man; but the blue eyes laughed,
and the full lips smiled the same—the very
same in both! ’

She laid the pictures down, and lifted the re-
maining contents of the packet from the floor.
That soft, golden tress of hair, entwined with
the darker curl, to whom could it belong but
one? She sickened as she looked at it, re-

 
 

56

membering how often, during that month of
happiness, she had gazed upon such tresses,
and longed, yet never dared, to twine them
around her fingers, to brush them back from
the open brow they shaded. She covered her
face with her hands, and a hot blush stole to
her very temples at the thought.

“How can I[ blame this poor, dead girl, even
in my secret heart?” she said, sadly to herself.
“She was guilty, it is true ; but [ have been

uiltier far. At least, she had the right to
Tae him which I have not. No tie, human or
divine, bound her to any one else on earth—
and I, a married woman—a woman who loved
her husband onee—ay,”—she cried, wildly
wringing her hands— “who worshiped him
once—lI have been trying to teach my heart to
watch for this man’s footstep—to wait and
yearn for his smile! I am fallen in my own
esteem; if not of the world’s; and this life of
outward purity which I lead is a sham, a
mockery, a lie!”

She struek her hand upon the table with a
fiery scorn and indignant loathing of herself
and her own weakness which a colder woman
could scarcely have felt. At that moment
some one tapped lightly at the door. She knew
who it was; and when La Stella, in answer to
her summons, entered, she rose, took both her
hands, and kissed her warmly.

“ You forgive me, then,” said La Stella, with
an air of infinite relief. ‘I could not help
doing as I did, even though I feared the act
would quite lose me your friendship.”

“Forgive you!” cried Kitty, impulsively.
“Tt is for you to forgive me. For you and all
the world! Oh, you don’t know what you
have saved me from!”

“ Perhaps I can guess.”

«“ You see, La Stella, I thought he loved me,
and that he would never desert me, as Mr.
Oliver did. But if he loved poor Janet, and
' was going to marry her, and then deserted her
—his own cousin, too—-what right have I to be-
lieve that he would be more constant to me?
And if I had gone with him, as he urged me to,
if he had deserted me—oh! La Stella—I feel
something here”—and she struck her hand
upon her heart—‘ something that tells me I
should have been far more wicked than poor
Janet, and not so penitent—not so good at the
last!”

‘ Only our good Father above can tell that,”
said La Stella, gently ; “and your thanks are
due to Him rather than they are to me for
your safety.”

Kitty did not answer. She only looked shy
and uncomfortable, as she always did if any
one made any religious allusion in her presence.
She had a horror of what she called “ preach-
in »?; and knowing this, the singer only drop-
ped this one small seed upon the stony ground,
and returned to the subject under discussion.

THE REJECTED WIFE; OR,

“J suppose you will see him no more,” she
observed. ‘Shall I take this packet and give
it to him ?”

“No; I will give it to him myself.

La Stella shook her head. /

“Don’t misunderstand me. I don’t wish to
see him alone. You shall stay in the room all
the while; but—but he has been kind to me,
and I must say good-bye.”

Her voice faltered as she spoke.

_ “Jt is unwise,” said La Stella; “ but I know
how very easy it is to give advice in these
cases ; and how very hard it is to take it. J
ean see the folly, the imprudence, of such a
meeting; but the pain, the soreness at your
heart that is craving for, and may be softened
and healed by it, I cannot see.”

“That is just it,” cried poor Kitty, with @
sob. ‘“ Whatever he may have been to her, he
has been good to me, and kind, when every one
else seemed cold and hard. If I may only
shake hands with him, and part kindly, I shall
be content.”

“Very well. I suppose I am a fool for en-
couraging such a thing, but I cannot quite for-
get that [ was myself young and in love, once
upon atime. You shall see him, poor ehiid,
and I will stay with you all the time.”

Kitty thanked her mutely by putting her
arms around her waist, and laying her weary
little head upon her shoulder. La Stella
smoothed the dark hair from her forehead with
a loving touch. At that moment a servant
opened the library-door, and, with a visible
hesitation in his manner—perhaps at the late-
ness of the hour—perhaps because of the gos-

sip of the servants’ hall—announced “ Captain

Conyers !”

- CHAPTER XXII.
“Oh, dinna mind my words, Willie
I downa seek to blame ;

But, oh, it’s hard to live, Willie,
And dree a warld’s shame !
* * * *

* *
Pm weary 0’ this warld, Willie,
And sick wi’ a’ I see ;
Icanna live as I have lived,
Or be as I should be !”
—MorTHERrweELl. —

Both ladies started. La Stella glanced anx-
iously at her friend, but, after the first in-
stance, Kitty was the more composed of the
two.

“Show Captain Conyers into the drawing-
room,” she said, quietly.

The servant disappeared; and a moment af:
ter they had entered the room, the captain,
looking haggard, anxious, and ill, rushed in.
His dress was disordered—his fair hair pushed
back from his forehead—his whole appearance
that of a man made insensible, for the time, by
misery to everything around, He did not even
see La Stella, as he rushed up to Kitty and
caught her hand.

 

 

 

ad
 

 

-

 

‘

 

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|

 

a“
v

“Oh, I have suffered torments since I left
you! Kitty, this cannot be borne? We have
gone too far to turn back now, aud you must be
mine !” :

Kitty did not speok—she could not. But La
Stella, rising and comivg forward, said, in ber
low, sweet voice:

«She does not see the necessity of that mad
step, Captain Conyers—nor do I!”

The eaptain dropped Kitty’s hand, and re-
treated a step.

“You here, La Stella?” he said, gnawing his
lip, and looking utterly discomfited,

‘Yes; by Kitty’s own wish and request.”

He looked as if he did not, would not, believe
that !

- «Ts it not, Kitty?” she asked, turning toward
her.

“Tt is,’ said Kitty, gravely. “And this
Captain Conyers, will tell you why.”

As she spoke, she held the miniature toward
him. He glanced at it with an air of wildest in-
credulity and surprise, and retreated still far-
ther from her, muttering confusedly ;

“‘That—Janet’s picture—how did you come
by that? Good heavens! Don’t ask me to
take it !” ;

Kitty laid it down again upon the table.
There could be no further concealment between
the two. od

“Captain Conyers 1” she said, in the same
grave, unimpassioned voice, “ your cousin Janet
is dead! I was with her at the last. She left

that for you! She forgave you, too. The
“merest chance in the world led to the discovery
of your secret; but I am glad now that it is
known. You will not have my guilt, my weak-
ness to answer for at the Last Day, as you must
have hers.”

The captain, having somewhat recovered his
composure during this speech, began to stam-
mer out some denial or excuse, but Kitty stop-
ped him. < ;

“Say nothing that is not strictly true, be-
cause I know all—all about Louis Heath, as
well as. George Conyers. Ina few minutes, we
shall have parted forever! Don’t let me think
that, at the last moment, you, whom I believed
to be so good, so noble, and so truthful, stooped
to tell a lie!”’

If she had wept—if she had scorned—~if she
had upbraided him—he might possibly have
known how to manage ier. But she was so
talm, so grave, that he felt abashed and awe-
stricken. He watched her silently as she folded
the hair, the letters, and her own and Jan: t’s

icture of him, neatly in the parcel once more.
ire took it from her hand, when she offered it,
put it in the breast-pocket of his coat, and still
stood gazing at her. La Stella, seein how well
the matter was progressing, drew baek into her

own corner, and held her tongue.”

“ And this is the end of all!” the eaptain ob-

A BROKEN LIFE. 57

served, at last. “After all our pleasant days
and evenings—after all our close and intimate
friendship—I am kicked out of the house like a
dog, on account of a boyish folly, which was
over years before I ever saw you!”

Kitty’s color rose high at his tone and man-
ner.

“ You eall it a boyish folly only!” she said.
“T call it more. You broke a heart that loved
you! You ruined a life that might have been
good and pure! And for all these things God
will bring you into judgment, lightly as you
look upon them now! For the rest, ! can only
say that poor Janet’s sad fate was a warning to
me; but the words you have just uttered are a
deeper warning still! I ean say good-bye more
easily now that you have spoken them !”

“ Kitty, what do you mean? Do you think
I could ever have forgotten—ever have forsaken
you?”

“ Most certainly I do.”

“Then you wrong me bitterly. I behaved
like a villain to poor Janet, I know; but I was
a mere boy, and she was not like you. If you
had trusted yourself to me, Kitty, my life would
have becu one long effort to make you happy.”

“ Words—words!” said Kitty, dreamily.

“J would have proved them true. Nay, I will
still do so, if you will allow me ”

At that speech, La Stella rose, and came for-
ward with flashing eyes.

“Some allowance, I suppose, ought to be
made for your position and your feelings, Cap-
tain Conyers,” she said; “ but, as Mrs. Oliver’s
friend, I must tell you, that if you dare to re-
peat that offer, or to insult her in any way
again, I will ring the bell, and have you turned
vut of the house by the servants five minutes
afterward.”

“And if she does not, I will!” said Kitty,
leaning her chin upon her hand and looking
steadily at him. \

If she had struck him he could scarcely have
looked more astonished. He muttered some-
thing indistinctly, and turned to go.

“Stop a moment, Captain Conyers,” said Kit- ;

ty. “I shall never see you again.”

“ Never, Kitty—never! I swear that, if you
send me trom you now, I will join my regiment
to-morrow, ah bid you and Old England a last
farewell together.”

A little, shivering sigh fluttered from Kitty's
lips; but she gave no otber sign of weakness.

“Well, it is better so; and I hope you may
live to be a good and happy man, as well as @
brave soldier.” ,

“ You would make me both.” ;

“We will not talk more of that; out, for the
sake of old times, the old friendship, I will say,
‘God speed!’ and we will part kindly. If you
ever think of me in India, forget all this folly,
and remember me only as a friend, whose best
Wishes follow you wherever you may go.”

;

4
|
-
i
it

ntact

Sa

ss

 
 

58

“ Kitty !”

It was dreadful to see him, as he caught her
hand and kissed it, with choking sobs and burn-
ing tears. Whatever his fault migit have been,
it was evident that he loved her more than life
itself. She turned pale as she saw him weep—
she wavered, and all might have been lost, but
for La Stella’s prompt interference.

“True love is the most unselfish thing on
earth,” she said to the young soldier. ‘+I feel
for you with all my heart; but if she is really
dear to you, you will leave her now ”

“Dear to me? La Stella, she is life itself!
And must I leave her? Leave her to a man
who cares nothing for her—who—O Kitty ! tell
me, am I to go-or not?

“Go, George!” :

Brave words, that fell like drops of blood from
her svrung and tortured heart! They made
him love her better, even while they spoke his
doom.

“T will! God bless you, Kitty!—God keep
ca good! Oh, it is the last time. {Let me

iss your forehead. It is the last time we shall
meet, unless we meet in heaven.”

Half fainting in La Stella’s arms, Kitty felt
a cold hand grasp her own—felt the touch of
cold lips upon her brow—then a door closed,
and all was silent, and a dark, empty void of
loneliness seemed to encompass her upon every
side.

“ Oh, he has gone!” she moaned, as she hid
her face upon La Stella’s friendly breast. ‘‘ Why
did you make me drive him away ?”

 

Did she repent already? Never mind. La-
vater tells us that a good deed, done at any mo-
ment, is a good deed done for all eternity ; and
He who faltered in the Garden of Gethsemane
before His dreadful task, will surely pardon us
if the frail flesh shrinks back in dismay, and
repines at the rough path over which the stronger
and more faithful spirit is leading it.

 

CHAPTER XXIII.

* Alas! that love was not too strong
For maiden shame and manly pride,
~ Alas! that they delayed so long
The goal of mutual bliss beside.

“Yet what no chance could then reveal,
And neither would be first to own,
Let fate and courage now conceal
Where truth could bring remorse alone.”
—R. Moncxron MILNE.
The “Growlery” had many a pleasant nook
and corner, within and without; but one of
the pleasantest, at Ic .:t to Miss Marchmont’s
eye, was an old summer- house, half-hidden with
ivy, that was perched, like a bird-cage, upon
the southern garden-wall. There was nothing,
it would seem, to recommend it to a Jady’s
taste; and yet, in the soft sunshine of that
autumn-day, when the birds were singing
among the elms, the rooks cawing around their

THE REJECTED WIFE; OR,

nests, and the swallows darting in and out
the ivy that covered the front of the building—
how pleasant a place it seemed, with its loose
board floors and open front, through which 2
charming prospect of hill and valley, and calm
blue sky and river met her lifted eyes!

Miss Marchmont’s seat was in an old, worm-
eaten chaise-longue, stowed there by some care-
ful hand, and furnished by her own with cushion
and footstool, whereon to lounge, with book or
pencil in hand.

Born with an artistie eye and taste, though
unable to reproduce the ervatures of her fancy,
she often, in her solitude, painted, mentally, the
most glowing landscapes, the sunniest, clearest
skies, the most impassioned and beautiful faces.
And now a face, both beautiful and beloved, was
on the spiritual canvas; a few more spirited
touches, a more decided curve to the handsome
lips, and a deeper, heavenlier blue within the
glorious eyes, and it would be complete. The
face of one whom she had met only a few
weeks before, whose voice, whose smile, had
taken her back to the days of her childhood
again.

He was a member of her own family, of
whom she had heard much, and thought and
dreamed far more. His sphere was an active
and a useful one—his life so pure, and holy, and
unselfish, that its relation served to awaken a
deep and dangerous interest within the heart of
the woman who had listened to it so eagerly.

Kind and courteous he was to all, and espe-
cially to women, and yet he had never loved ;
brave, yet gentle ; reserved, but never haughty ;
stately and handsome, yet without vanity ; and
dedicating all—courage, zeal, gentleness, and
glorious intellect—to the hazardous profession
he had chosen ; eonsecrating himself, as a kind
of high-priest, to the Lord, and only earing fo
follow in His footsteps, and preach His word to
the heathen and those who sat in darkness long-
ing for the light. He seemed to her a Christian
knight, “without fear and without reproach”,
and in her heart he was shrined, even in her
girlhood, not as an idol, but as her highest and
fullest realization of perfect manhood.

And now that she had met him when she was
best able to understand and appreciate his
worth, he was becoming, by degrees, all in all
to her—guile, teacher, companion, and friend—
and slowly, but surely, a love was growing up
in her heart for him—a love which purified her
whole nature and sanctified her Jife, and which
was no more to be compared to the former fancy
she had felt, than is the faint glimmer of star-
light on a cloudy eve to the full, clear ra-
dianee of the queenly moon, that looks, un-
stained, upon a dark and sinful earth.

The first affection was clogged with the
doubts, and jealousies, and sorrows of earth: ©
this wore the calm semblance of a heavenl
flame, She did not ask to be his wife; indeed,

ae,

 

 

 

 

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gas Ss Taw OO ee HA mie ew
 

 

  
   

ry

Countless flowers.

{ doubt if at that time she ever dreamed of the
Shing. She wished to labor with and for him ;
So sit at his feet and listen humbly to his teach-
ings ; to shelter him with an unobtrusive care
and devotion through life, and feel, in the hour
of death, that bis calm eyes were upon her, his
voice sounding prayerfully and hopefully in
her ear, his hand leading her through the valley
of the shadow of death, where grief and terror
lay in wait for her soul.

‘But no man, high anc noble though he may
be, has if in his nature to love as purely and
unselfishly as some women can do; and while
Paul Elliott saw that his young relative was
faithful and true, he saw also that she was gift-
ed and ardent; and, at least to him, beautiful.
He had never loved, because he had never found
talent and piety, genius and goodness com-
bined. Now, when he discovered all those nec-
essary qualities in one, and above all, in one
who had become so dear to him, and whom, he
feared, he should have loved had some of them
been wanting, he saw no reason why he should
not secure the treasure for himself. Neither
Were vowed to celibacy; both, he believed,
would be better, happier together than apart ;
and though he knew nothing of the sentiments
she cherished toward him, he preferred to trust
to his good fortune, and satisfy himself on that
Point, rather than to leave the decisive words
Unspoken, and go from her side and lose her
forever.

She knew this well; and sat, on that pleas-
ant morning, awaiting the announcement of his
Coming—awaiting the interview which was to
decide the whole course of future life.

A shadow crossed the sunlight upon the gar-
den-path, as she looked impatiently from the
Window—a hand was upon the lateh, and a step
Upon the threshold, as she resumed her seat—
and some one entered, bringing with him a
wandering breeze, freighted with the odor of
She rose, and held out her
and with a gentle smile that brought a new

| and lovely light to her proud face.

But as she slowly raised her eyes to the face

| of the intruder, that look changed to a glance
| Of astonishment, almost of fear.

“Mr. Oliver!” she gasped.

“The same, at your service,” he replied,
laughing at her look of utter consternation.
“One would imagine [ was the Wandering Jew,
and brouzht the plague in my train, to see the
Way in which people greet me. My wife was

”

| Kind enough to faint when I entered the break-

fast-room, somewhat unexpectedly this morn-
Ing—on account of the very agreeable surprise,
ho doubt,’ he added, with a sareastie intona-

| tion that showed her he knew all.

“ When did you arrive ** asked Miss March-
Mont, without noticing the sneer.

“ By the earliest train this morning. I came
°n the wings of Jove, or rather the Doye: cx:

 

A BROKEN LIFE, 59

press, to meet my charming Kitty all the soon-
er. My charming Kitty, did I say? My
charming Penelope rather—who has employed
the time of my absence by resolutely keeping
all her suitors at bay !”

“JT don’t like you in that mood, Mr. Oliver.
I don’t like your face—your voice—nor the
manner in which you speak of your wife! Why
did you go and leave her in that outrageous
way ?””

“Come and walk with me, Olive,” he said,
abruptly, offering his arm. Then, seeing that
she hesitated and looked surprised, he added :
“Oh, I bey ten thousand pardons, with ali my
heart! I should have said: Miss Marehmont,
will you honor me by taking a stroll with me
through your grounds ?”

It was absurd to refuse him ; and seeing, by
a stolen glance at her watch, that there was yet
an hour before Paul Elliott could arrive, she
took his arm, and they went down the steps and
into the sunny garden together. Through the
flower-garden he led her, and out upon the
lawn, where, vailed from the low shrubbery
from all inquiring eyes, stood a gnarled and
twisted tree, whose fantastically-carved trunk
had often served as a seat for some romantic
beauty during the al fresco entertainments for
which the “Growlery” was justly celebrated.
Miss Marechmont sat down there. Mr. Oliver
leaned against the branches, looked down at
her, and began to talk in that tone of suppress-
ed veliemence which deep passion only knows.

“ Why did I leave my wife? You know as
well as [ do, Miss Mareimont. I thought her
a good little:thing. I knew that she was pret-
ty; but one gets tired of muttun when it be-
comes a standing dish.

“ Mutton !” said Miss Marchmont, lifting her
eyebrows. 3

“Why not? Is not our charming little friend
yonder, a lamb? A lamb in innocence as well
as appearance, mind you.” :

« You have no right to speak of her in that
way. You were sarcastic enough and disa-
greeable enough before you ran away from her :
but your short residence in Paris has made you
worse instead of better.”

“ Thanks,” he said, bowing as if she had paid
him a ec mpliment. ‘ My short residence in
Paris sees to have had the same effect upon
my charming wife. Have you not noticed
that 2?”

“ No!” was the wngracious reply. ‘ And as
people cannot help taking sidesin these matters,
I must tell you frankly that [ hold with your
wife in everything—not with you; and that I
will not sit quietly and hear her abused !””

“In everything 2?” he said, with aslight smile.
“ Even in her encouragement of Captain Con-
yers ?”

“ Captain Conyers has gone. She has sent
him about bis business, at all events.”

saa

|

 

 

 

 
 

60

“T know it, and I am very sorry. There is
a curious sensation in my mind, when [ hear
that gallant captain mentioned, which can only
be allayed by the gentle exercise of kicking
him'out of my house. However, for the pres-
ent, let the gallant captain go. And so you
take part against me; you, of all women on
earth, Olive?”

She did not answer. Her eyes dreoped be-
neath his piercing questioning gaze.

The years that had passed since they were

young together had made little difference in
her face or form. She was still graceful and
noble. looking—the same haughty curve linger-
ed round her lip—the same roguish smile lit
up her animated face—and only a close observ-
er could discern that deep down in the proud
eyes lay a look of latent weariness, which show-
ed how different was the woman from the girl
of sixteen.

“T want to say something to you. May I?”

She bowed her head.

A sudden change was visible in his manner.
A subdued eagerness and a happy hope flushed
his cheek and kindle in his eyes. She looked
at him with a kind of calm surprise.

“You ask why I left my wife, and why I
speak of her as I did just now. You know,
Olive, how utterly unable she is to give me
what I require—the heart, the mind, the soul

shaw! Ido not look for these in her. Olive,

o you remember the summer we spent togeth-
er in America years ago?”

She would not tell him how long and faith-
fully she had remembered it.

“T loved you, then, as a sister,” he went on,
hurriedly ; “for all the tenderness and passion
of my/nature was sleeping. You began to
write ; and at last, one of your books came to
me; and when I read it, I knew what the lost
glory was. It was qs and your love that I
wanted; and I said to myself—‘This is the
kindred soul that I need.’ They told me that
you were gay, wealthy, and heartless. I was
afraid to foree myself upon your notice after
my infamous behavior, and I gave up all hopes
of ever meeting you again, except as we met in
the fashionable and the literary world. In the
New Forest, however, I dreamed a dream of

love and happiness once more, but only for a

day. You left me just when the words that
should haye won you were trembling on my
tongue—and I married! You have been my
friend—the friend of my wife !
be more?

would be. I cannot part from you again with-

out telling you how well—how\madly I love

you! Life will be nothing to me without you!
Olive, what have gen to say ?”
Pale and trem

her eyes. He knelt beside her, and implored.

THE REJECTED WIFE; OR,

that we may never meet again !

toward the house.
by look or word, to detain her

Will you never
Mine is a wasted. a broken life; but
you can make it all ] ever dreamed or hoped it

ling he awaited her answer.
But she was silent—sitting with her hand before

“Olive, only one word.
other ?”

She raised her head, and regarded him with
a long, steady look.

“You!” she said, sadly. “ You, whom I
once loved so tenderly, to come here and insult
me like this!”

“T mean no insult.”

“ You—you of all others! The measure of
your weakness, of your ingratitude, of your
cowardice, is filled! Farewell, Francis Oliver!
Your way lies there—mine here—and I hope
I would rath-
er—far rather, have seen you lying in your cof-

Do you love an

fin, than fallen—abject and degraded—as you
are now.”

She turned away as she spoke, and walked
And he dared not attem)t,

 

CHAPTER XXIV.
“ Farewell my home, my home no longer now.
Witness of many a calm and happy day ;
And thou, fair eminence, upon whose brow
Dwells the last sunshine of the evening ray.
Farewell, mine eyes no longer shall pursue
The westering sun beyond this utmost height
When slowly he forsakes the field of light.
No more the freshness of the falling dew
Cool, and delightful, here shall bathe my head,
As from this western window, dear, I lean,
Listening the while I watch the placid scene—
The martins twittering underneath the shed.
Farewell my home, where many a day has past,
In joys whose loved remembrance long shall last.’”

—Sournzy.

Was Mr. Oliver mad ?

It would almost seem so; but there are times
in a life like his when sanity puts on the aspect
of insanity, and plays the most fantastic tricks
imaginable. One of these wild moods had
come upon him, and he had yielded to it, as we
have seen.

Those who have lived such lives are, I think,
to be judged more leniently than those with
whom the current of existence has glided on
with a placid and unbroken flow. Mr. Oliver
had exhausted most pleasures in his youth, and

when Kitty first dawned upon his sight, he wasi
Some solacel

a lonely and a disappointed man,
ne found at first in her fresh young love for a
life wasted, for high gifts thrown away: but,
alas! the voice of that charmer could not always
soothe him. When the first fervor of passion

had passed away, ‘and he found nothing except —

beauty and good-temper in his wife (because

he would not look for more), how the tie of

marriage wearied him—how eagerly he turned
to anything, everything that would give him
one new sensation more! He ought to have
studied Kitty more deeply, it is true—he ought
to have watched and encouraged her first dim
perceptions of the beautiful—her first faint
reachings after the true; but he had not pa,
tience t do this. Authors, I think, are gener
ally impatient with those who do not mee

 

=

 
ta

 

 

A BKOKEN LIFE. 61 ©

them at once upon their own ground. They
will not take pains to hold out a helping hand,
that they may reach it; at least, if they take
such pains with strangers, they will not (owing,

' I suppose to the utter perversity of human na-
ture) with those who are nearest and dearest to
them. Had Kitty been a pretty young lady
“in society,” whose favor Mr. Oliver wished
to win, it is more than probable that he would
have found ways and means of improving her
mind; but she had been a peasant maid ‘before
she was his wife. Where would be the use
of angling after a speckled trout that is already
fast upon the hook?

So, finding her no companion for his more
thoughtful hours, and taking no pains to make
her so, Mr. Oliver, having had leisure during
his Parisian exile to repent of his momentary
infatuation for La Stella, returned to the
thought of his first love with fond and re-
morseful tenderness.

The breaking up of such a friendship is no
light thing, and it is no wonder that the
world had grown dark and cold. Once she had
lightened all his trouble by sharing it, and
when he missed her he groped blindly on his
way, as if the light of his existence had gone
out. She was the only one who stood between
him and the world. He had but her, and when
all sweet ties were rent in that one which bound
them together, he stood face to face with all
antagonists, unarmed and unshielded. He tried
to supply her place—not so much because he
was inconstant, as because he loathed his lone-
liness. In every instance he failed. Those
whom he sought had other ties and friends—at
best, he could, only occupy a second place in
their hearts. What was more important, was
this: they were of the common order of women.
Their souls were narrow, their brains capable
of supporting only one trivial set of ideas,
Probably he wearied them; certainly, they
wearied him most unbearably.

Olive’s was a queenly soul, that fed upon high
thoughts. And constant associations with such
a spirit, had spoiled him for others. So it came
to pass that he still went his way alone, and in
the Valley of Humiliation, or on the Mountain

_of Peace, his cry was always: ‘‘ Will she ever
come back to mé?”

And then he met her once again, and saw
her day after day, still young and ardent, yet
already rich and famous—the star of many an
assembly—a woman whose name was upon
every tongue, and whose written words, no less
than her spoken ones, influenced many a reader,
charmed and brightened many alife. And while
she was going steadily on in her upward course,
his wife was flirting with Captain Conyers—giv-
ing to him the heart she had vowed away at the
altar, and doing her best to make a laughing.
stock and byword of her husband’s name! It
Was not a pleasant contrast. And forgetting

all his share of the blame (no man ever remem-
bers, or is even conscious of that), he brooded
over the picture till all the disappointment, the
despondency, the hopelessness of his life, over-
flowed in that one interview with Miss March-
mont, and made her a stranger to him forever.

He watched her, as she left him that morn-
ing, till she entered the house and closed the
door behind her. All was over. His self-
love wounded, his pride hurt, his dearest hopes.
disappointed, her friendship lost, his life a
blank!

“A pleasing prospect before me!” he broke
out, with a bitter laugh. ‘Oh, I wish—I wish,
with all my heart that I was lying comfortably
under six feet of earth—all this ceaseless worry
and vexation over—nothing to do but to sleep
sweetly and take my rest. Death—kind death!
—when will you come?”

As those sad words fell from his weary
heart, as well as from his lips, did nothing
speak to him, from the flowers at his feet, from.
the softly-waving trees, from the deep blue sky,
of another world, whose beauty shall far exceed.
the beauty of this, and whose happiness, for
those who win to it, can never be described?
No! Pagan that he was, he asked nothing
more—believed in nothing more than rest! To
lie beneath those whispering trees; to ‘feel
the daisies growing over him;” to know that
sunshine and shadow were above, and the little
singing-birds, and the small, yet lovely crea-
tures of the earth around him; to blend his
dust with theirs, and to carry on the vast benefi-
cent plan of Nature. This was all he wan
—this was what would have been a blessed
boon to him upon that very day.

He roused himself from the pleasing yet
melancholy dream at last, and shrugged his.
shoulders.

“That happy hour has not come for me,” he
muttered; ‘and as there is nothing but vexa-
tion for me till it does come, I'll even go on in
the old way. I'll go and have it out with
Kitty.”

He strode away, never looking to the right
or the left, till he reached his own house. Kitty
was not in the library, which had of late been
her usual place of resort. She was in her own
morning-room, and there he sought her, at
last. She was sitting in the window-seat, read-
ing in a volume of poems, the legend of ‘Burd
Helen:”

‘Lord John he rode, Burd Helen ran,
A live-lang simmer’s day,
Until they cam’ to Clyde water,
Was filled frae bank to brae.

**Seest thou yon water, Helen,’ said he,
‘That flows from bank to brim?’
‘I trust to God, Lord John,’ she said,
‘You ne’er will see me swim.’ ”’
As she finished the lines, her husband entered,
and, without seeing her at first, stood close be~
side the window, looking out upon the lawn.

SSS

 
 

62

The heavy folds of the curtain in his hand
drooped down with a friendly shadow over her,
and she had time to take a stealthy survey of
him. Tall, stately, and handsome, he stood,
his fine face turned upward, his large, dark
eyes softening in the warm light of the noon-
day. He looked touched and pensive; was
this the face her fancy had pictured while she
read his letter. He looked like a poet —like a
patriot; but never like a false, unscrupulous man.

Turning away with a deep sigh, he suddenly
caught sight of her. His face changed—the
pensive look gave way to a smile of scorn.

“Oh, you are here!” he exclaimed. ‘Ihave
been in search of you for some time. I really
began to think you had gone away with your
friend, Captain Conyers!”

If there had been any chance of a reconcilia-
tion between them (and who can say what re-
viving thoughts of tenderness might not have
been in Kitty’s heart during that steady gaze?)
it was lost now, and forever. She sprung
from her seat, and dashed the book she was
reading to the floor.

“Mr. Oliver,” she cried, ‘‘how dare you say
such things to me? You have yet to learn, I
think, who you are speaking to.”

She was going out of the room when he
stopped her, pale with passion.

“Explain yourself.”

“ Let your own heart tell you what I mean.”

“Do you doubt my honor?”

She was silent for a moment. Then she said,
passionately: \

“Doubt you? I do more—far more than
that! I hate you! I have the most utter
‘contempt for you—a contempt which no words
can possibly express!”

“ Indeed!”

“Yes! and I have longed to tell you so ever
since you wrote to me from Paris.” ;

“Where I had been kindly informed, Kitty,
that you were making me and yourself the
Jaughing-stock of London.”

“T don’t care—I don’t care what they said!”
she cried defiantly, for his mocking smile made
her utterly beside herself with rage. “I wish
it had all been true, every word of it. And as
sure as I live, Mr. Oliver, I will leave you this
very day, and never see you, I hope, on earth
again.”

“You are complimentary, madam,” was all
he said, as she sprung toward the door, trem-
bling with passion from head to foot.

He opened it with a low bow, closed it after
her, and sat down and laughed. He had ‘had
it out” with Kitty much sooner than he thought.

 

That vow of Kitty’s was rashly made, it may
be, but it was faithfully kept. That very after-
noon, while Mr Oliver was in London, renew-
ing acquaintance with some of his old club
friends, she dressed herself for a walk, went

.

THE REJECTED WIFE; OR,

quietly out of the house and down the garden-
walk. Her own maid and several of the other
servants saw her go; but though she was as
pale as death, and carried a light traveling-
sachel in her hand, not one among them
dreamed that they would never look upon her
face again!

At the gate she paused for a moment, and
turned back toward the house with yearning
eyes, as if half-wavering in her purpose. The
bitterness of death was in that look! How
much—oh, how much she had said farewell to
forever as she closed that gate behind her for
the last time!

 

CHAPTER XXV.

“Our babe in its quiet sleep
Lay shrouded as soft as balm,
And the children came to peep
At its beauty, marbly calm;
‘Twas touched with diviner grace
Than when it had lived and smiled.
* * * * * * *

“O’er its beauty infantile
A nimbus of glory fell—
There lingered a rosebud smile,
A beautiful, peaceful spell;
The fingers of Nature wove
Its ringlets, which clustered free,
And pure was its breast of love,
As the wild young swan’s may be.”
‘ —SHELDON CHADWICK.
Five long years passed slowly away. To some
they brought new life and pleasure—to others,
sorrow, suffering, and death. To Kitty Oliver
they only gave a heritage of care and con-
cealed grief—a furrow on her open brow, and @
silvery hair or two in the brown locks that were
now smoothly banded away from her face, in-
stead of hanging in the wild luxuriance to which
she had accustomed them in her earlier years.

And this was only an outward token of the

inward change. Never were there two more
different beings than the girl of eighteen and
the woman of twenty-three. Grave and state-
ly, with a look of melancholy yearning and in-
ward pain in her proud, dark eyes, Kitty moved

about her home like one ina dream. She had ©

left England without seeing Miss Marchmont or
Mr. Oliver again, and had accompanied La
Stella, after her marriage, to New York. But
that marriage, to which the singer had looked
forward with much calm pleasure, had proved,
like Kitty’s, a most unhappy one.

The young husband, who had been so devoted

a lover, grew capricious and unkind, treated her

with coldness and neglect, and finally left her —

entirely in company with another woman.

In a little more than a year, her child was
born. She named her Agnes, and she became
the idol of the whole house, and her mother’s
life was bound up in her—she only breathed
and moved for her. ‘

When idols like this are made, they are often
taken away; but hers was spared—at least, for
a time.

’

a

 

 

 

 
 

 

A BROKEN LIFE. 63

Her child was her world, and she looked
upon it and saw that it was fair.

That child was taken suddenly from her by
treachery and stealth—taken from her home,
with all its pure and innocent associations, and
given to its father and his abandoned compan-
ions. Before she could follow upon their track
—in the zenith of her power, and glory, and
beauty—she was suddenly stricken down. A
terrible visitation was hanging over the devoted
city of New York, and she was one of the first
to fall a victim to the malady.

Nothing remained but to end her days in
peaceful obscurity. The hollow cough that

shook her wasted frame, and the cold dew that_

moistened her lip and forehead at the slightest
exertion, showed that they would be but few.

When she was pronounced strong enough to
bear the journey, she set out at once, accompa-
nied only by a single servant and Kitty, and
without again having one of the gay throng who
would have worshiped at her chariot-wheels.
With a sigh, she looked her last at New York,
remembering how her childish hopes and wishes
had turned thither, and how they had met with
their fulfillment. She sunk back in the carriage
as the dome of the City Hall faded from her
view, and thought of those whom she could
never meet again; and Kitty, faithful little
friend, loved, and soothed, and pitied her as
best she might.

How strange a contrast there seemed between
those two women! The one fair-haired and
soft-eyed, with a meek and quiet face, on whose
features contentment and home-happiness should
have been most plainly stamped; the other,
dark, and proud and self-sustained, with a look
that said to the most careless observer: ‘Oh, I
have suffered!” To one, life ought to have been
a fair summer’s day, with only now and then a
light and happy cloud; to the other—ah, what
to her?—but a bleak and stormy winter, where
everything she loved lay down, and shivered
and died. And yet their destinies, their trials,
had been almost precisely the same at the last.

At the “ Westwood Farm,” in Illinois, they
made their home—welcome and honored guests.
Six months passed happily away, when Kitty,
standing one morning in the farmhouse-door,
heard voices—men’s voices—in the garden be-
low, exchanging a careless adieu. She leaned
eagerly forward, and saw a tall, fine-looking
gentleman talking to the farmer’s eldest son:

“Well, good-by for the present.”

“Good-by.”

They started down to the gate together, still
smoking their cigars; and Kitty stood gazing
after them, her hands clasped tightly over her
beating heart; a wild look of unbelief, and
doubt, and bewilderment upon her beautiful
face.

 

CHAPTER XXVI.
‘““We sang our song together,
Till the stars shook in the skies—
We spoke—we spoke of common things,
Yet tears were in our eyes.
And her hand—I knew it trembled,
To the light, warm clasp of mine—
Still we were friends—but only friends—
My sweet friend, Leoline!”’

Strange, as that sudden meeting and _half-
recognition was, another quite as strange had
taken place only a few hours before in a far-off
Eastern land.

It was a day and a scene never to be forgot-
ten. A party of Europeans were crossing the
hill in an open ferry-boat, in company with
Arabs, Egyptians, Turks, Greeks, donkeys, and
donkeys’ boys, almost without number; while
their own peculiar circle consisted of two Ameri-
cans, two Englishmen, a French lady, a Ger-
man lady and her maid, an Arab Sheik, a
Greek dragoman, and the Russian prince, who.
was for the time being at his mercy, a Spanish
don, and two young gentlemen from the Emer-
ald Isle, whose handsome faces and slight mel-
low brogue were delightful alike to the eyeand
the ear.

It was a strange mixture of races, countries,
and languages, in so small a space; but every
one took kindly to the situation, and chatted
away as if they had known each other for a
lifetime, instead of half an hour. The whole ex-
pedition, so far, had been one series of blunders
and mistakes. The donkeys, provided by the
English lady for herself and friends, had been
sent into Cairo the preceding night, in charge
of an Arab servant, who chose to overlook the
regulation which forces every one to carry a
small paper lantern through the city streets
after eight, P.M. Consequently, Mustapha and
his donkeys were safely ensconced in the guard-
house for the day, and the ladies were forced to
content themselves with the animals recruited
by Zeld, the dragoman, from the public stands.
Then, a portion of the party, tired of waiting
while these arrangements were being carried out,
had started in advance, and would probably be
heard of no more that day. They had carried
off part of the provisions and all the wine—they
had taken a different route from the rest; and
last, but not least, they had enticed away a third
Américan, on whose calm good sense and even
temper all had relied, in case the Northerner
and Southerner, who still remained with them,
came to grief over the discussion of the merits
of the “‘ peculiar institution.”

For all these mishaps, however, there was no
remedy; and, accordingly, they made them-
selves merry over them, till the grave-eyed
Orientals around looked up in wonder at the

confusion of tongues and the hearty bursts of

laughter proceeding from the end of the boat
where the ‘ Christians” were congregated.
Slowly the clumsy vessel made its way across
the beautiful Nile, while the rowers sung their

\

ras ina atten ie nent

     
 

a

 
 

 

64

monotonous chant, and stared placidly at the
banks they had left behind them. At last they
landed; and after twenty minutes of indescrib-
able noise and confusion, found themselves
clear of the Arab village, and trutting swiftly
along upon donkeys toward their goal of hope
—the Pyramids. One lady fell behind as they
fcrded a small stream, about an hour later, and
watched the picturesque procession winding up
the steep banks and disappearing beneath the
palm-trees just beyond. First rode the two
Arab guides, dressed in white, with heavy guns
slung behind their backs; then the two Eng-
lishmen, then the Northern lady mounted on
a donkey that bore the appropriate name of
“Yankee Doodle,” and had a decided penchant
for taking her into all the bogs, and across all
the unsafe places on the way. By this lady’s
side, the watcher saw, with some surprise, the
Southern captain. Apparently no interference
between them was necessary —they were chat-
ting together as amiably as if slavery and abo-
litionism had never existed. Behind this pair
rode the French lady and the Russian prince,
followed by the German lady and her maid, es-
corted by the two young Irishmen. The don-
key-boys and dragomen brought up the rear.
As they went slowly on, in Indian file, the lady
saw a rider crossing the desert at full speed, on
a splendid black Arabian horse. He gazed
somewhat curiously at the motley cavalcade
passing by; but when he caught sight of her
face, he reined up with a sudden exclamation
of surprise, and held out his hand.

“How long is it since you left England?”

he said. ‘‘Where have you been all these
years?”

“Tn Italy.”

“ Alone?”

Her color rose.

“No. With my husband, Paul Elliott!”

“The missionary!” he said, staring at her in
wildest surprise. ‘‘ You have married him?”

“Yes; and have accompanied him here for
the work he has to do.”

He looked very much as if he was going to
whistle, but checked himself in time.

“Ts he with you, to-day?”

“No, he is at Cairo.”

“ And are you happy?”

“Very. Are you?”

“Oh, of course!” he said, bitterly. ‘‘ A name-
less, homeless wretch, without a soul on earth
to care if he lives or dies, mast be very happy
—don’t you think so?”

“Get Kitty back again, then; and be kinder
to her than you used to be!”

He stared.

“Why—is it possible you do not know?
There has been a divorce!”

“Who procured it?”

“T did. I got it before Captain Conyers
died in India.”

 

THE REJECTED WIFE; OR,

“Then, God forgive you, Francis Oliver!
‘You have been the evil genius of that poor
child’s life; but this last cruelty crowns all.
Let us say good-by, at once!”

* As you like.”

But, even while he spoke the words, some-
thing swelled in his throat, and his eyes filled
with tears.

“You ought not to be so harsh with me,” he
murmured. ‘‘ However, good-by, since you
will have it so, and may you be happy. Shake
hands once more!”

She gave him her hand. He bent over it an
instant, then touched his horse with his spur,
and was off like the wind toward the Pyramids.
Straight on in the wide desert he rode, and so
vanished from her eyes. In the land of his
adoption he lived and died, but Olive Elliott
never saw him on earth again!

 

CHAPTER XXVII.

“There’s a blue flower in my on
The bee loves more than all—
The bee and I, we love it both,
Though it is but frail and small.

“She, loved it too—long, long ago—
Her love was less than mine;
Still we were friends—but only friends—
My lost love, Leoline!”’

Kitty, going back into the farm-house in a
state of utter bewilderment, met good Mrs.
Westwood, with her hands full of magnificent
hot-house flowers.

“Oh, there you are!” she exclaimed, as she
caught sight of her young lodger. ‘I was so
afraid you had gone out. And here are some
splendid flowers, that Judge Hill brought for
the sick lady from his own conservatory.”

“Judge who?” said Kitty, as she took the
brilliant bouquet and hid her face in it, lest the
old lady should see the equally-brilliant blush
that rose suddenly in her cheeks,

“Judge Hill, of Hilltown—a great friend of
my son John’s. Such a house as he has got,
my dear! Such horses, such carriages! He is
an Englishman, you know.”

‘«Tndeed!”

“Yes; and when he came to America, he
was as poor as Job’s turkey, they say. But
everything has prospered with him since he set-
tled out West. He is a naturalized American
citizen, you see, and as smart a manas you
will find anywhere. He has been a selectman,
and member for Congress, and now he is a judge,
and Hilltown is named after him. You must
let my John drive you over there some day;
for his place is really worth seeing.”

“Mrs, Hill might not like that,” suggested
Kitty, in a low voice.

‘¢ Law bless you! he isn’t married. That is
the worst of him. He won’t marry. We al-
ways have a quarrel about it when he comes
‘here. As I tell him, an old bachelor is of no
sort of use in this world; but he only laughs.

 

 
 

 

A BROKEN LIFE.

So kind is he to women, too! The minute he
heard we had a sick lady here, he brought these
flowers.all the way himself—twelve good miles,
if it is a step.

“He is indeed very kind,” said Kitty. ‘‘ Pray,
say how much we are obliged to him, the next
time he comes here.”

“That I will!’ And the good old woman
bustled: away to look after her household af-
fairs.

Kitty mused a moment, then went straight to
La Stella, gave her the flowers, and told her
all. Whereupon La Stella, wayward as in-
valids usually are, bestirred herself to obtain
more information about the young judge, and
ascertaining, without a doubt, that he was about
to pay a short visit to the city of New York,
she immediately insisted on returning there—
dragged Kitty in her train, and entered upon a
round of fashionable dissipation, which had but
one acknowledged end, that of bringing the
long-parted friends together once again.

They met first at a party in a Fifth Avenue
hotel, given in honor of the English consul.

Kitty, the brilliant, dark-eyed woman, witha
certain Spanish ease and coquetry visible in her
manner, was the acknowledged belle of the
room. Young men and old men, bowed alike
at her shrine, and gazed enraptured on the per-
fect loveliness of her face. All save one—and
he stood aloof, at a little distance, with his head
bowed moodily, and his arms crossed upon his
breast. With a kind of startled interest he

mingled with the select few who were following
her to the music-room. A friend came up and
took his arm.

“Tt will besucha treat,” he whispered. ‘She
‘seldom sings, but to-night she was obliged to
yield. Iam so glad.”

He did not answer. He was watching the
superb air of indifference with which she re-
ceived the attention of those who thronged
around her.

“What shall I sing?’ she asked indiffer-
ently.

“Oh, let it be one of your beautiful Scotch
ballads,” said a lady who stood beside her.

She paused, played a simple prelude, and be-
gan. to sing ‘‘ Bonny Doon.”

The listener started and turned pale. He had
often heard that same song among the groves of
New Forest, and though the deep contralto
voice was wonderfully strengthened and puri-
fied, he felt that it must be thesame. Dazzled
and bewildered, he passed his hand over his
eyes, and tried to think.

How she had changed! How proud and
-queenly she looked—and how well her costly
dress became her! He gazed at her with his
soul in his eyes. As she sung the touching
“words—

“And my fause lover pu’d the rose,
But oh, he left the thorn with me!”

65

with the sound of tears in her voice, she looked
up, and there beside her stood the one whose
memory seemed inseparably connected with the
song, and of whom she was even then thinking!
The shock was too great and sudden. She
sprung up, laid both her hands in his, and then,
for the first time in her life, she fainted!

All was confusion around her; but it was
Judge Hill who bore her to a couch near the
window.

“Give her air!” he said, loudly, and they
obeyed, while one or two, who had remained to
assist him, hurried away for remedies. The
two so long parted were alone.

She opened her heavy eyes, and saw him
bending over her, pale as death.

“You here! Do we meet again like this,
William?’ she exclaimed.

After the first sudden shock, however, she
bore the meeting well, for she had been school-
ing herself for it long. Not so the judge. His
voice faltered—his cheek paled as he touched
her hand, and a deep flush rose to his very
temples. With a graceful ease she covered his
embarrassment, and, dismissing the group of
friends around her one by one, fanned herself
languidly while she chatted, first to him, and
then to La Stella, who still remained. But
William was too anxious and ill at ease to join
the conversation, and at last she took pity on
him,

“The heat of the room is still so great,” she
murmured, ‘if you will give me your arm, we
will explore some of the cool marble halls and
passages for which this house is so famous.
Anything is better than these crowded saloons.”

“Dear Kitty, forgive me,” he said. ‘But
when I saw you so unhappy, I could not go
away or be silent. You know—you must know
—that [love you with all my heart and soul.
I would sooner die than see a shadow or a cloud
upon your face.”

A look of bitter pain passed over it even as
he was speaking; for she remembered that he
had said the same thing to her, long before, in
the garden by the New Forest.

“Tam sorry to hear you say this,” she an-
swered, rather unsteadily.

“T have always felt that you were wronged,”
he went on, eagerly. ‘‘I have heard something
about you—not much—but enough to make me
love you more, and to long with all my heart
for the happiness of calling you my wife.”

“Ah,” she said, shaking her head, “I have
had many a thought of you, William, since I
knew we were to meet. We have both grown
old. So ends this little story of love for me.
For the rest, I try to be useful and busy, and
fill up my appointed time as best I may. It is

a pleasanter life, too, than I once thought it

could be. It is not the life that might have
been; but God knows what is best. I look
back upon my early life in the New Forest, and

 
66

that troubled ecstasy of love as a beautiful
dream, which was given me at morning, that I
migh better support the toils and trials of life’s
noonday. But the noonday is going now, and
the night is coming on, I look forward to noth-
ing but rest. I have waited to tell you this,
William—to thank you for all your goodness
and kindness—to say ‘farewell. God bless
you!’ I am glad you are a good and a noble
man; because one day, if not now, I am sure,
you will be a very happy one.”

One light pressure on his hand, and she glided.
away like a ghost.

He did not attempt to detain her. He left
the house and sought his own rooms at the
—— Hotel.

Throwing a few things into a valise, he
stepped out into the street, and walked slowly
up toward the hotel where the ball had been
given. He found himself there, after a hurried
walk of some five minutes,

“Tt is the last time, Kitty, that I shall be so
weak,” he murmured, as he looked up at the
brilliantly lighted windows, ‘‘ The last time I
shall be so near you! Oh Kitty, can you
dream what you have done, or is your heart
all marble?”

He buried his face in his hands and wept like
a child. The memory of the happy hours he
had spent with her, came over him too strongly
to be borne. He coulda only meet such remem-
brances with his tears.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

“Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, Oh seal
And | would that my tongue could utter -
The thoughts that arise in me!

Oh, well for the fisherman’s boy,
hat he shouts with his sister at play;
And well for the sailor-lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay.”
—TENNYSON,

In the guest-chamber at the Westwood Farm,

Kitty Oliver lay dying! Consumption, that
fatal scourge of the Northern climate, had al-
ready numbered La Stella among its victims,
_and was but waiting now, in a few hours, to
claim another as his prey. e
Kitty knew well that all was over—knew tha’
the fair green earth had nothing more in store
for her. Yet she was very calm—busying her-
self in penning little, trembling words of fare-
well to her father, Miss Marchmont, and the
husband whose face she was never to see again.
‘When the letters were finished, she lay back
upon her pillow with a placid smile.
“And this is death!” she said, musingly.
“After this sad mistake of life, comes the
sweet and long repose! Ido not fear it.”

[rae

THE REJECTED WIFE; OR,

A sob from the watcher by her side checked
the words. She put out her hand gently.

“Poor William! First to love, and last to
desert me! I knew that you would come when
I sent for you. And I shall die happier for
having you here. There is something sweet to
me in the thought of passing my last hours
with you. I began life by your side alone, let
me also end it here.”

‘He could not speak. He laid his head down
upon her hand, and cried bitterly.

“Do you remember,” she said, dreamily,
“the old fairy tale we used to read together?
How I should like to hear it once again.”

“‘T can remember it, Kitty.”

“Tell it to me, then.”

With a trembling voice, broken by sobs, he
began the dear familiar tale.

She checked him in the middle of it, saying:

**Oh, I wish we had staid in the New Forest
all our lives, dear, reading fairy tales! I have
been so tired all these years; I am so tired
now!” :

She closed her eyes with a weary sigh, and
seemed to doze. Then a strange change passed
over her face, she opened her eyes, and looked
with questioning fear at him. /

“ After all, | dread it! It is dark and cold!
I feel so faint! I am afraid to die! I don’t
know how to die.”

“But we have read in the Bible, my dar-
ling—”

“T know. God be merciful to me—a sin-
ner.”

They were her last words. She folded her
hands upon her breast, looked up to heaven,
and died!

William bent above her in speechless agony
a moment. Then, rising from his knees, he
closed the sightless eyes, kissed the cold lips,
covered the poor, pale face, and went away
weeping bitterly.

The fairy tale was never finished. But better
words and a sweeter song were on her lips, we
trust, in Heaven!

The tale is told, dear reader! If you ask me
why I have painted the sad picture of their
separated, aimless, and, in some sense, wasted:
lives, I cannot answer you. What one sees,.
that must one reproduce.

The silence of the grave hallows all things.
And standing by that lonely mound upon the
western prairie, it may be that each one of us
can forgive poor Kitty for her faults and follies-
—can judge her mercifully—and looking at the
secret records of our own lives, feel pity and
sorrow for this useless broken one of hers! So
gently may we all be judged in turn, when we,
too, sleep the sleep that knows no waking.

END. |

 
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