VIGNETTES FROM MY ALBUM.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 3, Issue 227, 20 September 1878, Page 2

VIGNETTES FROM MY ALBUM.

'■\\ \ \ Daisy. ; (Contributed,) I shall open at hap hazard and see what familiar face will first look out at me from the pages of my well-used album. Is there most pleasure or pain, do you think, in reentering by spirit gates a 'world you have long since left and meeting those who were once your life, without whom existence would have seemed almost impossible then, but who now, dead to you—too many of them in reality beneath the turf of far away lands—; live but in the pages of a book! Most pleasure, methinks, there must be, for, though all the air of such a a world is filled but at the best with the perfume of pain-steeped pleasure, yet is it not natural- for us rather to clothe ourselves in our pain as in a garment, to press r our mental fingers 'in our heart wounds that they should -remain open, not be healed, and to feel prouder in our inner selves of what we have suffered than of what we have done? Were it not for this arid the feeling that— " 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all," not a few of us would carefully seal up the .most of the; photographs We ' possess, and, along with the valueless ,( relics of. other days," deposit them them in some dark recess, out of reach and out of mind.

I open here, and in the right-hand corner —Daisy Langthorne laughs out at me with the old sweet, smiling face, and, of course, beside her I can see, without looking, my bnce fidus Achates Bernie Archer. I scarcely think the poet's description would altogether suit you, Daisy, "we, modest, crimson-tippit flower," for though you were not tall, and modesty in the meaning of unaffectedness, was certainly one of i your charms, yet " crimson tippit" you seldom were. Bernie and I used often to wonder at the exceedingly clear and pale, yet warm, complexion, so seldom seen with that bright gold hair of yours—perhaps only when the eyes are so dark a blue as often, in some lights especially, to seem brown. I cannot describe your face, Daisy, although it is before me, for even the sun-picture I am looking at is not you, until memory infuses life and color into it, so how worthless must any pendrawing be. We spoke most of you that last night Bernie and I were together before he left for India; still, then he did not think he waa in love with you, though he was always contrasting you with all the other girls he knew, and—well the others were not altogether flattered in his comparison. Ah ! Bernie, old fellow, how would it have been with you now had you not got your orders for Foreign Service till another year had past ? It might have been different, but still you were only a sub., and he was your Colonel with a-,presumptive five thousand a year. In Bernie's letters to me he ueed always to ask about Daisy, and when I met her she never failed to inquire how my friend Lieut. Archer was, and how he liked India. I, however, had never much to communicate on either side, till about a year after, when I was informed of Daisy's approaching marriage with Colonel Beynton. Had it not been for the disparity in years I should not have been astonished, for there were few finer men than Beynton in the service, and on parade more admiring eyes were turned on him than on any one else in his regiment, yet there is a great difference between sixty and eighteen, and a strong feeling of dislike to the match came over me when I heard of it. From this time I made a point of seeing Daisy of tener, if possible to find out her real feelings in the matter, but to me she always appeared quite contented, if not in an enthusiastic frame of mind, and I became satisfied that if she was not in love with her intended husband, at any rate she was not in love with anyone else. One day I said to her that I was going to write that evening to Archer and tell him of her forthcoming marriage ; at first she looked a little conscious, and seemed as if about to say something ; then, however, she laughed and said—" He'll be rather amused to find; me his superior officer don't you think he will ?" The wedding took place sooner than was at first intended, the Horse Guards being unable to give the extension of leave asked for and expected by the Colonel, but his presence was required with his regiment. Very soon after they departed for India, and I next heard of them and their arrival there through Archer, who in all his letters to me for some little time mentioned the name of his Colonel's wife rather oftener than I thought under the circumstances was necessary. Then all at once I heard no more from him ; mail after mail, still no letter; until at last I heard that he had exchanged into a regiment stationed on the frontier at Peshawur, the only place in India where there was any fighting going on at the time ; and almost simultaneous with this came the.news of his being wounded in action and sent home on sick leave. I cannot tell how I was struck with the alteration in him when I met him at Southampton. It was not that he was weaker, or an invalid, -for his wound had been a slight one, and the voyage had done much to restore him, but there was such a change of expression, such a sad* weary look in his face, which even the smile he greeted me with, as I grasped his hand, could not banish. At first he laughed off all my inquiries, saying he was all right and quite able to punch my head if I became impertinently inquisitive; but that night when we were alone together, smoking our cigars on the balcony, the night scarce lit by the setting moon and I waning stars, with a soft wind breathing through the trees and bearing on its drowsy ( wings the perfume of eyringas and roses, and no sound awaking the silence we had for some time kept, but the faint lapping of the infant waves on the not far distant beach, Archer, all at once, unasked, gave me the information that I had asked for in vain before. He had been thrown naturally very much into Daisy's society, from having known her before, and through the Colonel's having taken a great liking to him. Never dreaming of aiiy danger, they themselves never lost any opportunity of being together, until, for a time, all unconsciously to them, the liking which they had for each other grew into a passion, strong as death. Archer, when he first discovered his infatuation, endeavoured to shun its cause by avoidin

the Colonel's house, but this being impossible, and finding his powers of selfrestraint becoming weaker, and his punishment greater than he could bear, at once negotiated an exchange into a regiment on the frontier, deaf to the expostulations of his Colonel, who was deeply offended at such a course, when he could perceive no reason for it. The reason, however fortunately or unfortunately it may be, he discovered before Archer's departure, as he unintentionally witnessed the end of the parting scene between poor Daisy and equally, poor Bernie, when the flimsy veil that had bung between their consciousness of love was rent in pieces, and Daisy fell fainting into Archer's arms in the agony of adieu. The Colonel, seeing exactly how matters stood, did all in his power to comfort and sustain his poor child-wife, but not many months after Archer's arrival in England, we heard of consumptive symptoms having shewn themselves, and two months later, we heard of her death. Poor Daisy lies in a nook -shaded by feathery palms in the park at Barrackpore, and Bernie is wandering, few know where.