LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume I, Issue 99, 24 September 1874, Page 3

LITERATURE.

EVELYN'S MISTAKE. [From Bow Bells."] To be a bride—young, beautiful, beloved, and just established in a charming little house of one's own I Does . 't that siate of things the realization of perfect happiness, if such a thing cau be foun' 1 . iu this weary world of ours, my gentle reader? You will doubtless answer, as I should do, were &'>ine other writer to ask me the question, " Yes. If happiness could not be found in a state of existence so poetic, then happiness io no dweller in our lower sphere." About that there may be two opinions in the minds of very wise people, by the way. But Evelyn Powerscourt had but one. She was the only daughter of wealthy and indulgent pareuts, who had praised and petted her during eighteen sunny years, and resigned her, jnst as she was entering upon another, to the care of a handsome and wealthy husband of twenty-five, who seemed perfectly willing to carry out the work of spoiling which they had so thoroughly begun. Ellis Powerscourt was a lawyer of good standing and repute. His fame might have been more satisfying and enduring, had he been obliged to serve an apprenticeship to poverty from his earliest boyhood. Evelyn, on her part, was exceedingly romantic and impressionable. With a head full of foolish notions, she fell in love with Ellis Powerscourt, and finally, with the approbation of both families, married him, and after a brief honeymoon tour the Lakes, settled down for life in a villa, on the banks of the Thames, just far enough from town to admit o* daily journeys to and fro, on her husband's part, and weekly or bi-weekly shopping excursions on her own. All this, though very delightful, was very tame and unexciting. Every one had approved of her marriage. Her father had given her a magnificent parure of diamonds and opals on her wedding-day ; her father-in-law had presented her with a deed of gift of the pretty villa and its adjacent grounds. It had all been too smooth, too prosperous. What dangers or difficulties had there been in the way to testthe devotion her handsome young husband was so ready to express? None—none ! How, then, could she be certain that she was really loved ? She was sitting in her boudoir one morning, after her husband had gone to town, meditating over this important question, while she swung the silvered tassels of her blue silk breakfast robe idly to and fro Suddenly she sprang from her chair, and clapped her hands. ' I have it! I have it! I'll ask Morna to come here for a month's visit. She can no more help flirting thau she can help breathing, and she is as beautiful as a dream. When I see Ellis constant to me in spite of her fascination, I shall be surer of his love than I can be now, when it has never been tried.' Would you believe, fair reader, that any woman could be so superlatively silly ? All this came of having nothing to do. If Ellis Powerscourt had been a poor man, his bride would have had to be looking after his dinner, making his shirts, and mending his clothes. Not much time or inclination would she have had, then, for ' trying her husband's love.' Its certainly would have brooded, like an unspoken blessing, over the humble duties of her daily life. Had he been a poor man, moreover, Ellis Powerscourt, forced to win his daily bread by the daily exercise of every talent he could account for, would never have felt the vague dissatisfaction with life he felt mow—would never have had leisure to speculate upon the possibilities of his existence as compared with its realities; and, above all, would never have had leisure to listen to those possibilities apparently made real by the sweetest and most bewildering of voices. But I am anticipating. Mrs Powerscourt sat down and wrote a long letter, as the result of her morning's meditations. That evening, as she strolled up and down the lawn, leaning on her husband's arm, she said, casually, " Ellis, we are to have a guest. I have asked Morna Strong to pay us a visit.' Ellis, whose thoughts, to tell the truth, had been very far away, took the cigar from his lips, and looked perfectly aghast. ' Morna Strong! What on earth do you want her here for, my darling ?' ' Shp is my cousin, you know,' said Evelyn? quickly. ' Don't you like her, love ? ' 1 1 never saw her in my life.' ' Then why are you so prejudiced against her ? I know you are, by your looks and tone. So confess, sir.' Mr Powerscourt laughed, and resumed his cigar. ' My dearest,' all I know of her is, that she behaved most shamefull to Fred Orme—turned him off in the most heartless way ; and he never will get over it, never 1 And he is not the first of her list, by a great many. No, I don't like your cousin, my dear. She is a heartless coquette. She is thirty years old, and she is very plain—at least, I hear so, even from the men who rave about her most. Even poor Fred admits that. However, since you have asked her here, I will try to be polite to her, as I would be to any other guest of yours. Of course she will not stay long.' ' Not long,' answered Evelyn, beginning to repent of her experiment even before it was really made, and not daring to confess that she had asked her cousin for a month. So, when Ellis Powerscourt came home the next evening, he was not surprised to be introduced to ' Cousin Morna,' who had arrived by the afternoon train, and who welcomed him with a sweeping curtsey only, as if she knew instinctively of his dislike, and was prepared to meet and to return it in full. All through that evening he watched her furtively, with the greatest curiosity. Plain they had called, very plain. Well, yes, it was true ! There was no beauty in the irregularly featured face. But, iu its place, was something that the most perfect beauty often lacks—a sudden, indescribable light and g] ow _an animation as sparkling as it was evanescent, that gave her a wonderful and almost dangerous charm. But—a heartless coquette ! That was the world's verdict, and till now it had been his own. But during that evening she made not the slightest attempt to gain his attention. He caught her eyes lingering upon his face with an absorbed admiring gaze once or twice, ; but the eyes dropped, and she colored like a girl, when she saw that he noticed her

scrutiny. After that, for a long time, slw did not look his way again. She admired him, then. A certain glow of satisfaction thrilled through him at the thought. But, perhr.ps she thought him only a handsome coxcomb, without brains. He won 1 i show her her mistake. So joining the two ladies, from whom he had herefore held aloof, he begs:, to talk. He was well read, well informed ; and so was Morua Strong. Subjects came f : discussion between them, of which poor Evelyn knew little or nothing, but which the other two lingered over with the keeiu sc animation and delight. They sang, and the clear tenor and the delicious contralto melted into each other, lite moonlight into music. They rode, and Morna wasaeplendid horsewoman, while Evelyn could barely keep her seat during a respectable trot. They drove, and Morna's place was ever at the side of her host; in short, before two weeks had passed over her head, poor Evelyn saw her mistake thoroughly, repented her experiment bitterly, and would have given worlds if the gray-eyed enchantress had never entered her house. How was all this brought about? Only by a few words, and a single "glance of the dark-gray eyes, on the first evening of the lady's arrival. Ellis Powerscourt was sitting silent, after a long and interesting discussion on literature and the arts was at an end. 'Such hours are the wine of life,' he said softly, as if to himself ; ' all else is but the dregs, and yet the dregs are oftenest at our lips !' ' You feel this !' said Morna's soft, low voice, the gray eyes looking into his. Header, have you ever met one of those dangerous looks—a veiled impalpable caress? ' You have the soul to feel this emptiness, this yearning, while the world calls your life happy, and your home a heaven 1 ' This was what the soft gray eyes said, on that eventful night. And Ellis Powerscourt, unhappily for himself, read their meaning all too well! From that instant, a subtle current of sympathy existed between them, unspoken, yet understood and felt by both. And from that moment, the young man's infatuation was complete. She understood him ; she knew how great a capacity for good lay dormant in his soul. She would have helped him onward and upward, had fate given her to him for a mate, instead of the childish, pretty Evelyn, who had never known him, as this stranger knew him now. A heartless coquette, indeed 1 They slandered her vilely who called her so. Never was there a noblersoul, a more candid nature, a warmer or more loving heart, than this woman possessed. Oh, if Fate had but been kinder to him, what a life his might have been, with Morna ever beside him to cheer and help him on. Poor ;little Evelyn ! If tears and sighs could atone for an imprudence, surely hers must have been wiped away for ever, about this time. What tortures the poor little soul underwent at this period of her life no one, save her Maker and herself, ever knew. The struggle benefited her, in one sense of the world. It cleared away, and for ever, the mist of romance and folly in which her soul was enveloped. It taught her to value life's happiness when it was once more her own, but never to trifle with or test it in any absurd way. It made her wiser, kinder, better perhaps, in every way. But before it did all this, it nearly broke her heart. The month of Morna's visit drew at last to an end. Evelyn did not urge her to prolong, or to repeat it. And Mr Powerscourt, oc his side, was equally reticent and discreet. For Morna was only going to town, where he should be able to see her often, and linger by her side as he pleased, without being punished by the mutely reproachful looks poor Evelyn was beginning to send their way whenever they seemed absorbed by each other, to the exclusion of her own fair self. But it would no do to let poor Evelyn suspect too much of all that was between them. Peace at home, as well as happiness abroad, was best, if it could be obtained by a little management. So he let nearly a week pass by, before he snatched the evening from his home which he had determined to devote to Morna and happiness, since both words now represented the same thing—to him 1 Sending a brief note by his clerk out to the villa, to apologise to Evelyn for his absence, on the score of a private ' gentlemen's dinner,' the errant husband made a careful toilette, and hurried, as if he was treading on air, to the house of an old friend where Morna was, for the present, residing. The servant who answered the door showed him into the dining-room, where the master of the house, sitting half asleep over his wine and walnuts, looked up with a stare of surprise at the of his visitor, and his elaborate toilette. 'What! Ellis Powerscourt? Why, man, have you mistaken the hour ? Why didn't you come to the wedding 1 I know Morna sent you a card, and we expected you.' ' The wedding ?' said Powerscourt, turning pale to the lips. ' Whose wedding ?' ' Why, Morna's, to be sure; whose else should it be 1 The greatest thing of the season yet, my boy. To see the bride's diamonds, and old Jones trying to look sentimental when they stood up together 1' 'Jones ?' ' The banker—the millionaire, the man of diamonds,' said his friend impatiently. ' Now don't say you knew nothing about it, when Morna stayed at your house all the time her trousseau was being got over from Paris. And a splendid one it was my boy. If she has sold herself, as they say, she took care to make old Jones pay her full price, I can tell you. And we got them cleverly married, and the breakfast and all. Hallo! What's the matter, Ellis ?' He sprang forward just in time. He helped his friend to a chair, loosened his heck-tie, and held a glass of wine to his ashen lips. ' The jade! Here is some more of her work. I pity poor Jones. That woman is positively fatal,' he muttered to himself, as he was busied in these kindly cares. But being at heart a "good fellow, and feeling sorry for poor Evelyn as well, he never opened his lips about the occurrences of that evening to any human being—never even alluded to them afterwards in conversation with his friend. And Ellis Powerscourt went home, a sadder and a wiser man. He still lives in the villa with his wife and one or two fair-haired children ; and ' Mrs Jones ' still queens it in society, slaying her victims wherever she may go. Between the husband and wife her name is never mentioned. But never again can they be so perfectly and entirely happy as before the siren came between them, led thither by Evelyn's romantic folly, and I Evelyn's mistake.