THE INITIALS ON THE TREE.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 101, 26 September 1874, Page 3

THE INITIALS ON THE TREE.

[From Bow Bells. ]

The spacious and splendid grounds of Beechwood, on the Hudson, were thrown open for a fancy dress fete champctre , in which Roman peasants and Albanian soldiers competed with beauties of the Middle Ages and cavaliers of the Vandyke period. Everybody, for miles around, who was socially distinguished, was present. New York city itself had sent up some of its most charming belles. A brass band, concealed in a thicket, alternated its music with that of a score of stringed instruments, which played walzea for the dancers in a gigantic marquee. But while all the rest of the gay assembly appeared to be enjoying themselves, the possessor of Beechwood seemed pre-occupied and unhappy. His eye wandered restlessly about, as if seeking some one in vain. The efforts of his fair unmarried guests to engage his attention—and many there were who made the attempt, for, though more than forty years of age, Douglas Stuart was still handsome and fabulously rich—failed, except for a few moments at a time. Evidently he was out of spirits. The truth was that she for whom the fete was really given, the one whose smile he valued more than the smiles of all the rest, had unaccountably disappeared. Had Douglas Stuart known where she was, and how she was occupied, his restlessness would have been even greater. At that moment, Maud Milton was deep in the famous beech-wood, that lay to the back of the house, and from, which the place had taken its name. Half an hour before, a gentleman, dressed in a velvet doublet, in the Florentine style of the fourteenth century, had appeared on the edge of the lawn; and a few minutes after, Maud also in a dress of the era, had sauntered that way, and the two had immediately disappeared within the shelter of the wood. There, seated on a rustic bench, in the very furthest and most shaded dell of the forest, they had conversed for some time, as only lovers converse, his arm around her waist, her head on his shoulder, their hands clasped, their eyes drinking in each other’s looks. Now their positions were changed, but were still those of lovers. The cavalier was hastily cutting her initials and his own, R.M., within a true-lover’s heart, on the trunk of a gigantic beech that partially shaded the seat; while Maud leaned on his shoulder, watching the proceeding till it was finished.

‘ There ! ’ she said, finally, drawing a long breath. ‘lt is done at last. I am so glad, Rupert, for I must go now—they will miaa me, if I stay much longer.’ ‘You don’t regret meeting me, and coming ? ’ he said, half reproachfully. * Nothing but the consciousness that this was my only chance—that if I did not see you to-day, I should not see you for years—could have induced me to have assumed this disguise, and to have come where I was not invited,’

She pressed his arm tenderly. ‘No, dear,’ she answered ; ‘ I do not regret it. But, for all that, it is better I should not be missed. Don’t misunderstand me, love. My life with mamma will be hard enough—you wouldn’t do anything to make it harder ? ’

‘ Not for worlds.’ He turned, took her in his arms, and kissed her, as he spoke. ‘ Heaven bless you, darling, for meeting me. I feel now as if I could brave years of absence, and all the perils of Australia.’ ‘ I will be true to you, Rupert,’ said the girl, with beautiful enthusiasm, clinging to him, and looking up into his eyes, ‘as long as those letters remain, which will be as long as this tree stands, and that will be for more than the lifetime of either of us. For ever, I mean.’ ‘ For ever 1 I mean it too,’ cried he, and then, with another long, straining embrace, and a mutual, fervid kiss, the lovers parted. Maud Milton was the only child of a widow, who had once been in opulent circumstances. But the sudden death of her husband had left her almost penniless, so that she had been compelled to give up her splendid mansion in the Fifth Avenue, ans retire to the little village, on whose outskirts stood the lordly mansion and grounds of Beechwood.

Mrs Milton was not a woman to accept this destiny contentedly. Her sola object was to recover her lost position; Life was nothing to her without luxury and show. As she saw no way of returning to New York, except as the mother of a wealthy son-in-law, her whole aim, since her daughter had left school, had been to manoeuvre for a grand match for Maud. But there was one obstacle in the way. In earlier and happier days, Rupert Allington and Maud had been playmates, and the childish affection, at which the parents on both sides had then laughed, instead of dying out, as is usual, had now developed into a maturer love, that threatened to thwart all Mrs Milton’s plans. For Rupert, too, was penniless. His father had been ruined in the same convulsion that had carried down Mr Milton ; and the young man had nothing upon which to depend, except what his brains and hands could earn. In every way Mrs Milton had discouraged the attachment; and when Rupert, finally, had accepted a situation in Australia, in the hope of making his fortune, and had boldly gone to her with his suit, she had positively forbidden him the house. This had brought matters to a crisis. Resolved not to leave the country without a parting interview with Maud, he had availed himself of Mr Stuart’s fete, to which he had gone in disguise, and uninvited, as we have seen, having had a note secretly conveyed to Maud, telling her of his intention, of the dress he intended to wear, and of the spot where to expect him To he continued.