LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 144, 18 November 1874, Page 3

LITERATURE.

LADY ESTHER. Bv Mrs Forrester, Author of "From Olympus to Hades," &<.'. {Continued.) Chapter IV. 'lam sorry to have kept you waiting,' began the kind-hearted little lady ; ' but I took a wrong turning, and found myself out by the bridge. How do you do, Captain Loraine ?' And then, when he had wished them good-bye, and was gone, she turned with assumed anger to Lady Esther. ' This is very wrong of you, Esther; you promised only to say good-bj'e and come back to me at once, and it is j ust fifty minutes by my watch since you left me. It really is too bad. What on earth would your mother say to me ?' ' I don't know, and I don't care,' returned the girl, moodily. ' Oh, Flora, if you knew how miserable 1 am !' ' Miserable ? nonsense ! with a brilliant future before you, and the means of gratifying all your expensive tastes and wishes.'

'And a man I loathe,' groaned Esther. ' Oh, how could I be so wicked ?' ' You should have thought of that before it was too late. You cannot change your mind now.' ' "What will become of poor Vincent ?' ' He'll get over it, near fear. Men don't break their hearts now-a-days. That they ever did is pure tradition, I believe.' Chapter V. The engagement was not to be a long one. The wedding was to take place in August at Gladesharn Park, and great festivities were to attend the happy occasion. Lady Esther was in a state of restless fever : sometimes in unnaturally high .'spirits—at others in a bitter mocking mood —oftener still utterly moody and depressed. Mr Valliant loaded her with presents and attentions ; every day great heaps of costly exotics arrived from his country house. One afternoon, as she sat with her brother and sister and Mrs La Touche in the little fanciful boudoir, a servant bought in the usual floral offering and a jewel case. Lady Esther threw the bouquet petulantly on one side, and laid the case carelessly on the table without opening it. ' You don't seem to have much curiosity,' observed Lady Maddalene, in a tone of pique. 'You can open it if you like," returned her sister, indifferently. Lady Maddalene proceeded to unfold all the paper wrappings with care, and presently arrived at a blue-dark velvet case. She uttered a little cry as she opened it. ' Oh, how lovely ! Esther, look !

Lady Esther turned her eyes languidly, and contemplated the sparkling brilliants with supreme indifference. ' How lucky you are !' exclaimed her sister, enviously. ' How I wish I were you !' ' You can't wish it more than I do,' retorted Esther.

' Are you not going to try them on ?' ' No ; you can if you like.' And Lady Maddalene proceeded to array herself in the necklace and earrings her sister affected to despise. ' Well,' exclaimed Desmond, drawing a long breath, ' I must say, Esther, you have the most deuced odd ways of any girl I ever met. Here you've been sighing after all these things ever since you were fourteen, and now, when you've got everything you want, you look as glum and discontented as —as —l don't know what,' finished Mr St. Sylvan, at a loss for a smile. ' My dear Desmond, that is the inconsistency of human nature,' returned Esther, nonchalantly. 'lt is not to be wondered at if what has puzzled all the wiseheads in turn should be a little out of the range of your comprehension. I don't mean to hint that you're at all deficient, dear, I know I ought at this moment to be dancing before the glass like Marguerite in the jewel scene, instead of which I'm wishing myself at the bottom of one of the brewer's beer vats.'

' I don't think you'd be much loss to any one if you were, dear,' remarked Maddalene, unclasping the diamonds. ' It would not be a particularly pleasant way of ' shuffling off this mortal coil,' I should say,' laughed Flora. ' Come, Esther, you are pulling those lovely orchids to pieces.' "I don't care,'said Esther, petulantly, flinging the bouquet aside. ' Don't care came to a bad end, dear,' said Lady Maddalene, maliciously. 'lt couldn't ltave come to a worse end than me,' retorted Esther, who was in an unwontedly dark mood. ' Why don't you give the man up if you dislike him so much ?' ' Who said I disliked him V cried Esther, firing up. ' You don't understand the caprices of the tender passion, Maddy,' and she laughed. ' For all you know, Chloo may be sighing at this moment for her .Strephon, and counting the hours until she beholds the loved form.'

' 1 should think if Strephon has as much of your pleasing tempers as we do, he'd soon look out for another Chloe,' retorted Desmond, savagely. Further exchange of amenities was here put an end to by the arrival of the modiste, with a display or elegant wares, and the three ladies soon became engrossed in this new distraction, while Mr St Sylvan betook himself to other scenes.

Lady Esther recovered her good humor, tried on her jewels, sent a charming little note of thanks to the donor, and was quite herself all the evening. But when she came in from the state ball that night, she found a letter, in Captain Loraine's handwriting, lying on the dressing-table. She could scarcely control her impatience until the maid had undressed her, and was gone. Then she broke the seal hastily, and read : ' Dear Lady Esther, " 1 know 1 am wrong in writing to you, but I am half beside myself at the impossibility of meeting you, and feel that with my prolonged absence every hope and chance is slipping from my grasp. My father is still in danger ; the only comfort he has is in my presence ; so you understand that I dare not hint at leaving him even for four-and-twenty hours. Oh, darling! if you only knew the tortures I endure in thinking that every day brings our eternal separation nearer. • I am tormented, too, with the feeling that it is selfish on my part, who have so little to offer you, to try to dissuade you from this marriage, but to bear the pain of knowing you another's, a man must be much stronger-minded, or love you less than I. 1 dare not urge you—you—only only, darling. 1 do so love you !

' Always yours, unless you will it otherwise, 'Vincent Loraine.' Great tears fell upon the letter, blurring it with stains and blinding Lady Esther's eyes. She sat with her head bowed upon her hands for an hour, and then suddenly she raised a smiling face. ' I do love you, dear, and I will give up everything for you,' she murmured, in a happy, half-dreamy voice. But the morning brought sage and bitter counsel, and the answer she really sent to Captain Loraine was this : ' I have made my choice, and must abide by it." But her Spartan brevity cost her more anguish than • if she had filled sheets of paper with her lamentations. A few days later, Captain Loraine wrote again : 'lt would be unmanly, were Ito appeal again from your decision ; only remember, until the power of choosing is past, how much I love you.' Chapter VI. Away from the busy world of fashion and folly, from the gay frivolities of life, from pleasure-hunting, ambition, envyings, and—no—not heart-burnings. God knows, they follow into the farthest haunts and reaches of man. * Solitude,' as the sage Zimmermann saith, 'cannot escape them.' But still, down in the sweet country, amongst yellowing cornfields and blooming heather, with hot July days spent under the great shadows of impenetrable chestnuts and towering elms, and nights serene, when she wandered across the velvet grass and looked up into the diamond-studded heavens of blue, my Lady Esther spent the last days of her freedom. But here, with pride and artificial wants forgotten, life assumed a different aspect in the girl's eyes, and Nature's sweet voice, asserting her own simple charms, taught her new theories on possible happiness in this world.

It was the last day in July, and she had wandered down the gardens and across the warren to the brook that ran through the park. She sat down under a great beech tree, and looked at the cool gurgling water with a vague feeling of sadness. She was not thinking ; only there was a dull oppression at her breast, that when we are in trouble rouses us occasionally to wonder what makes the day seem so dull. So Esther sat and listened to the sweet unwearying melody the birds sang overhead, and the harmonious babbling of the brook. Her eyes wandered over the green sward, gemmed with its simple mid flowers, the profusion of clustering forget-me-nots by the water's edge ; then upwards, through the vistas of trees ; then they closed drowsily to the sweet hushing sounds, and Esther fell into a daydream.

' I think I have been quite mad all this time,' she murmured to herself, 'to think that the only satisfaction in life was to heap luxuries round myself, and to make others envious of my ostentatious grandeur. What a hateful, selfish creature I shall become when I have married that man ! All my life will be warped into a mean selfish desire to please myself, and without love my heart will grow as hard and uncompassionate as a nether millstone. I shall loathe my husband worse every day ; his vulgarity will sicken out all the pride and pleasure of wealthy I dare say I shall not value pomp and riches one atom, but perhaps envy the poorest woman who loves and is loved. As if, after all, there is not something in the world much better worth living for than all that miserable outside show; as if one could have no worthier aim than making a god of oneself, and heaping luxury and extravagance round the one adored object! What is it lam going to sell freedom, heart, hope, every joy of my life for ? The pleasure of seeming enviable, of doing everything in the best style, and going everywhere that fashion congregates; of wearing fine jewels and fine clothes, of riding and driving handsome horses, of entertaining sumptuously! Yes, there is undeniably pleasure in that, if one's heart was not aching with disgust all the time. But how about all those other hours in the twenty-four—those other months in the year when one is not occupied with the world —when one has time to think and to go mad with longing after something worth wasting one's heart upon ? How if I saw men I did and could care for, and had only the choice of losing them or the world ? But, on the other hand, if I married a man I loved, even though I had to make sacrifices, should I not know a thousand times more happiness than all the money in the world could give me ? Of course I should have my fits of envy and longing, my sudden repinings and peevish discontents; but I know I should be fifty times happier really. I feel there is no happiness like loving and being loved. Oh, if Vincent would only come now! " There was a sound of footsteps approaching, and Lady Esther's heart stood still with sudden hope, and a crimson blush overspread her face. She did not look round until a shadow fell across the grass, and then, oh blank unspeakable mortification ! her eyes rested on the ungainly form of her betrothed. She started to her feet to conceal her annoyance and confusion. ' How you startled me !' she exclaimed, pettishly. ' I'm very sorry, I'm sure ;' and he took her hand. It was a warm day, and he had no gloves. Esther shuddered. ' You've never given me a kiss all the time we've been engaged,' said Strephon, amorously, and wiping his mouth as if indulging the delights of anticipation. Esther drew her hand away quickly—quite pale now. ' It's ridiculous being so formal, when we're going to be married in a fortnight,' said her lover, nettled. ' And you might just as well begin to call me by my Christian name.'

' It's such a very unromantie one,' returned Esther, with a curl of her lip. ' Well, 1 didn't choose it myself. I suppose a man's none the worse for not having a fine outlandish name V Evidently Strephon was not in a good humor. Lady Esther leaned against the tree half beside herself with disgust for the man who was already beginning to assume airs of proprietorship over her. She looked really pretty with the rays from the setting sun slanting across her golden hair, and grey distressed eyes looking away into the distance, Mr Valliant watched her with a half-angry, half-bully expression. ' Why the deuce should I stand her cursed proud impudence?' he said to himself. ' She's always stand-off, and full of airs ; but womeu don't like you a bit the better for giving in to 'em too much.

Before she suspected his intention, Mr Valliant approached her suddenly, and, putting his arm round her little waist, imprinted a fervent kiss on her fair face. To be continued.