LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume I, Issue 21, 24 June 1874, Page 4

LITERATURE.

RIGHTED AT LAST. Concluded. So, with the best patience he could muster, he did her bidding, and waited, not knowing where or with whom she was; hearing no word of or from her; watching sadly the rapid breaking-up of her deserted home, the close-shuttered dreariness of the rooms in which he had so often seen her ; hearing the endless surmises as to her fortune, which was unanimously decided to be large ; and her future, about which no one knew anything, but all had plenty to say, until at last, even in the little gossip-loving village, the subject was worn out, and the horror of the accident (if accident it wa -, and that God only knew) died away from men's minds, and left them free to discuss the incoming tenants of the White House. The curate's love story had been well kept from the small world about him ; none knew how anxiously he was waiting among them for the last chapter of that history.

It came last, the letter she had promisedwritten to him from an old town just beyond the hills which lay before him as he read the pages. 4 I am not at all the same person who went away five months ago,' she wrote. ' Then I was very rich, now I am very poor. I have only my dead mother's money to call my own ; it is not a hundred a year. You see, I try to tell you the worst first, and yet not all the worst. How shall. I write the truth about him, my father. He was always so good to me, and yet I never could be happy with him —not quite ; and now I am going to make you hate him. You thought perhaps he had been born to plenty of money, or had earned it in some business or profession. Unhappily it was not so. He was only a junior partner in a firm of lawyers. His senior was an old man, and a very rich one, who had but one relative, a niece, to inherit his property. I think a marriage was once thought of between my father and this lady; but she preferred a man of her o?m choice, fitting in some respects, but most obnoxious to her uncle. A private marriage between them enraged Mr Laurence into disinheriting his niece ; and at his death, a few years later, it was found that he had left upwards of thirty thousand pounds to my father, making no mention of his then widowed niece in his will. That much all the world knew, and even then cried shame upon the old man for his harshness. But they did not know what my dear mother discovered when too late—that my father had secretly helped on the distasteful marriage, and had then, alas, done all in his power to foster the estrangement between the uncle and niece, evenhow conld he do it!—keeping from hex the knowledge of her uncle's illness, fearing lest at the last moment; she should come between him and his expected fortune ; and, worst of allj he told his dying partner that his niece refused to come, though he had sent entreating, her to do so. I could tell you much more; but surely this is too much. It|almost breaks my heart to have to write it. It quite broke my mother's heart when she knew all the truth. The fortune was a misery and a shame to her, as it has been to me. I thank God lam rid of it now, all the wretched inheritance from my poor father has gone to its rightful owner, Mis Merlin. Would it were possible that any deed of mine could atone, to her for all the misery my father's, act brought her 1 But I can do no more. I have kept my promise to my mother, who told me the full truth only to impress on me the need of acting as I have done with the money, as soon as I had the power,.and I only tell you to justify myself. Surely I need not ask your pity for my father and for me. Is it not an awful thing to say his death lifted a load from my heart, although he .was so good to me, and I loved him so when I was a child 1 Now you know why your story about Charlie Merlin troubled us so. Now I have told you all. Remember you are not bound to me by any word of promise. It was riches kept us apart when you spoke to me on Christmas eve. Idared not tell you then what you know now. If our poverty stands between us now, so be it; no single thought of mine shall ever reproach you.' Then a bit of girlish weakness stole in—' But I. should like to see you once.'

''Once!' cried the curate joyfully; 'ay, that she shall I' And he might almost have added, ' and for ever;' for the next day's meeting was but the first of many, and the weeks were but, few before these two joined homes as well as hearts, and set out to face the world together, not over rich, but strong in youth and love—one of them at least leading anew life, freed from the heavy burden that another's sin had bound upon her earlier years. , A TALE OF THE FDTUEE. i [From " London Society."] •'No, sir, I will not—l never bet. Once only in my life did I make a bet for a large sum, and I lost that in such a humiliating way that I registered a vow not to be bitten a second time:'

' You quite raise my curiosity. As there is no chance of our settling by a friendly bet the little dispute as to what exact species of abomination our friend the costermonger is hawking, you should at least let me have the benefit of your first and last experience in that line.'

* It is an old story, now ; but if you light a cheroot and join me in another bottle of Forzato. I shall let you into the secret of my dislike to betting.' The speakers were both Englishmen, and had met by chance at a little auberge in an out-of-the-way village of the lower Eugadine. Having dined together, they were having their cigars in the verandah, when some trifling difference of opinion brought on the conversation given above. Ab soon as madame the hostess had supplied their wants, the elder of the two began to relate the following incident with an air of veracity so Btrongly marked that the tener found it impossible to doubt the accuracy of what he said : 4 The time I speak of is some twenty or five-and-twenty years ago, when the Alpine Club was still in its full glory. Things were very different then from what they are now. The Andes Association had not yet been formed—destined as it was utterly to cast into the shade its Alpine predecessor. There was no railway over Mont Blanc, and the idea of a lift to the hotel on the top of the Matterhorn had not yet been started ; in fact, if I remember rightly, the hotel itself had not been built. I was at that time a member of the club, and few more enthusiastic individuals could have beeu found amongst the number of its ad-

mirers. Innumerable were the articles that I contributed to its Journal, giving appalling accounts of the adventures I had met with in scaling peaks and climbing down precipices, and other little performances of that nature. Immense used to my delight and pride at being able to describe the maeic letters A. C. after my name in the visitors' books in Swiss inns. Astonishing used to be the '• get up " in which I started for the most ordinary mountain walk, girt about with a variety of ropes, and ice-axes, and spectacles, and belts. I can speak jestingly of these little vanities now, but it took a very severe and a very expensive lesson entirely to cure me. And the way it came about was this. There was to be an annual dinner of the club held at the Crystal Palace on a certain day in May, soon after I had taken my university degree. This dinner I had set my heart on attending ; but when the afternoon of the day arrived, I received a letter from some country cousins, saying that they were coming up to town that day, and begging me to meet them at the train. This was pleasant; but as there was no help for it, I endeavored to calm my ruffled teritper with the assistance of my hookah, and so far succeeded that I was not actually rude to my relatives, while escorting them across town. When I had thus done my duty I began to consider what to do with myself, and what particular establishment 1 should favor with my custom for dinner that evening. Just as 1 had settled this important matter, who should I meet coming round a corner, but my friend Jack Hilyar? the very man, of all others, I should have wished to come upon at the moment. Jack was as good a fellow aB ever breathed—pleasant and light-hearted, but with plenty of stuff in him for all that. As luck would have it, he had not yet dined, so we arranged to have a quite little dinner together, and a good chat in the smoking room afterward. We had finished the second course, and were discussing the wines and desert, when a stranger entered the room and seated himself at the table next tome. Now, all my life I have been a physiognomist—not, perhaps, in the ordinary sense of the word, as I do not assert that I can read a man's general character from his appearance—but this I can tell at the first glance, whether a man is potentially my enemy or my friend. In this judgment at first sight I have never yet found myself to be mistaken. The very moment the stranger entered the room where we sat, I conceived an intense dislike to him a feeling that that man, if ever he were to cross my path, would prove a determined and formidable foe. At a glance we could see that he was an American. The sharp, eagle face, the slouching gait, and, above all, the intensely free and easy manner, indicated his nationality beyond the shadow of a doubt. Putting three chairs together, he stretched himself along them and set himself to stare calmly and persistently at Jack and myself. We were partly amused and partly annoyed at the insolence of the man; but, as we had finished our wine, we adjourned to the smoking-room. Soon after the American followed us into the other room, and reared himself up against the mantel-piece, while he gave out, for the benefit of all present, his opinion on things in general. Jack, who.had got over his first feeling of disgust, seemed highly to enjoy the man's eccentricity, and to wish to draw him out as much as possible. Soon he grew tired of this amusement, so we resumed the talk we had been engaged in on the subject of the Alpine Club. Jack was thinking of joining it, and in reply to his questions, 1 gave a glowing description of all its glories. The harsh voice of the American broke upon our ears with the remark : " I calc'late the Alpine Club is a tarnation humbug." Jack looked delighted, and, giving a sly glance at me, proceeded to draw out our friend once more.

"'I hope, sir," he rejoined, in a moßt polite tone, " that you will give your reasons for that opinion, as I had thought of becoming a member ; but, of course, would not do so if convinced that the whole concern was a humbug." . '"Wall, stranger, you could not do a knowinger thing than stay as you air. I guess they've named the thing wrong; It should be the ' Brag Company, Limited.' Some 'tarnal duffer that calls himself an A.O. goes up a mountain that all the folk have known for years, and then writes to all the European papers tc say that he has made a first ascent. I reckon they've raised the prices of every darned thing in Switzerland close to fifty per cent. Then they're such cheeky cusses to meet; and the greater the duffer the cheekier he is. Don't do it, stranger—don't do it." « While this was going on, I sat by silent, but rapidly losing my temper. At last I could stand it no longer, and burst out with: " This is mere vague abuse, sir. I will bet you any sum of money you choose to name that I will select a better mountaineer from the members of the club than any man you can name. Is that a fair offer ? The Alpine Club against the world." ' The Yankee looked me over from head to foot, and then drawled out: "Wall, stranger, I guess I'll take your bet, if you'll let the monntaineering be between you and me. I lay you 10,000 dollars thit before this time three years I'll have cut you out in tall climbing."

' I had spoken hastily, and was perfectly taken aback at being closed with so quickly. However, I was in for it now, and could not go back from my word. As coolly as I could, I 3aid : " Just as you like. Let the bet be between you and me. The sum you name will be as good as any other, but of course must be lodged by both parties before the matter is finally arranged." '" I calc'late you're right, stranger. It won't be long before you hear from me about it. What do you say your name is?"

' " Forbes —Henry Forbes." '"Mine is Zachariah Johnston, of New York City. Wall, I guess we're to meet here on this day three years, and whichever has first done the tallest and hardest mountain is to have the stakes. Shake hands on it, stranger —shake hands on it." " Here I was obliged reluctantly to stretch out my hand to be grasped by the bony fingers of the other. After this, he tossed the end of his chercot into the fireplace and sauntered out of the room whistling " Yankee Doodle." To oe continued,