LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 176, 31 December 1874, Page 3

LITERATURE.

AUDREY'S CHRISTMAS MORNING. ( Concluded?) 1 She does care for you, Colonel Wrighton. I know her better than any one else does, and I know that love for you is breaking aunt Helen'3 heart.' And Audrey, with the pale sweet face before her mind's eye, forgot her own sorrow and pleaded for her aunt. ' I know that it is for your sake alone that she has remained unmarried all thes» years. Papa told me all about it, though he never mentioned your name. Men have been wondering why the lovely Helen Ashton is still Miss Ashton. You know why. You have been the cause. You treated her very ungenerously once; you cast away her love for a girlish folly ; you left her when you should have stayed to protect and love her. What is all your farfamed bravery?' Audrey asked indignantly. But Colonel Wrighton put his hands over his face, and she paused at his evident pain. ' Stop, Miss Ashton. I may have done wrong, as you say, but if 1 have, she has not been the only sufferer. I have suffered too, keenly enough. If you are right, I may still make some reparation. I can still offer her my heart again ; it has been hers all along, and I shall indeed thank God with all my heart if my Helen is able to forgive me and take me back. You will shake hands now ?' he asked, ' and say that you forgive me. Forget that I was ever foolish enough to believe that a creature as young and bright as you are could have cared for me.'

Poor Audrey ! She laid her little hand in his, and turned her head away towards the white blossoms, that were not paler at that moment than the girl's face. So he left her, little dreaming that he carried with him her heart.

And Audrey sat there, and thought of Helen's happiness, and felt very glad that she would be the means of bringing it about. Then she fancied how it would all happen. He would go to-morrow, and they would be reunited and married and she would ask her father when he returned to take her abroad, where she and Claude Wrighton would never meet. Some day she would marry perhaps, and no one would ever guess that Audrey had so completely given her heart away in the days of her girlhood. Yes, that was how it would all happen ; she made up her mind to that while she sat there, the tears filling her eyes, nobly striving to feel happy in the happiness she believed she had secured for another, and content with her own lot if the other were accomplished.

Helen Ashton was sitting in her room alone, feeling very sad and troubled; she had been walking up and down under the trees, thinking of the life that was growing into a dim memory now, thinking of the man who had left her in a fit of jealous anger —who had been living close to her now for some time, and yet had never once come near her. No, she was forgotten—forgotten—forgotten ; yet she had been true to him, as women sometimes can be; she had refused to become the wife of good and true men because of the love she still bore him.

Many a man even now, when her youth was passing over, would have taken Helen for his wife, but people had come to believe that she would never marry. • She sat hiding her eyes from the sunlight that stole in, and at the door a tall figure stood watching her. He saw a woman in a pearl-gray silk with a winter rose in her bosom, and with her soft brown hair braided on her forehead in the old way he remembered so well. She was sitting there alone, with only her thoughts to keep her company. He watched her some minutes in silence, and then he very softly spoke her name : ' Helen !' She started, and a little low cry came from her lips. '0 Claude!' She had put out her arms to him, but stepped back, remembering that all was changed between them long ago; but he sprang to her side, and passing his strong arm round her waist, soon drew her head down on his shoulder. ' Thank God, my darling, it is ended at last. My Helen, nave you forgiven me ?' he asked, looking down into her glad brown eyes. ' It was not for me to forgive, Claude.' ' Yes, it is, my darling, it is for you to forgive; but 0, my Helen, why did you never answer my letter ? I wrote it in all truth, my Nelly. I wanted you back very badly then, as I have always done.' ' I never received any letter from you all these years, Claude. Oh, do you believe if I had received any letter from you that I should have left it unanswered ?'

And so it had been. The miscarriage of a single letter had worked so much misery to two who loved each other very truly, unnecessary misery, it seemed at first, misery and separation; but Helen knew that God's ways are wiser than ours, and she always believed that those years had worked out their own good purpose. How much he had to tell of those years during which they had never met or communicated, and how proud she felt of him ! though that was no new feeling, for she had felt proud of him whenever the papers had coupled his name with any of his deeds of fame. He had something to tell, too, of his short stay at Lorrimer Hall, and of her dear Audrey, and here he had a confession to make about Audrey and his foolish mistake. ' Fancy my thinking that a bright creature such as she is could have been dying of love for me, Helen. I never felt so small in my life, and yet I had some grand idea of sacri ficing my useless life to her. Oh, you should have seen the scorn in her eyes as she stood there, knowing all the time that I did not love her, and that I believed she loved me.'

Helen did not seem to think it would have been anything very wonderful if Audrey had loved him, but she hoped very sincerely that she had not done so. Any lingering misgiving she might have had on this score was completely dispelled by Audrey's letter of hearty joyous congratulation when she heard the news.

' Papa has written to say he is coining home,' she wrote, 'and as he is not very well, he wishes to spend his Christmas at Ashton Mills, so I have told Mrs Huntley that I. shall say good-bye to her on Christmas morning ; but don't expect me earlier, aunt Nelly, for we are eiigaged to go somewhere or other on every day till then, and I know you will never be lonely again, so I don't mind leaving you. Oh, I do so hope and trust you will be happy; I think no one will be so glad as I shall be if you are. After the wedding I mean to take papa abroad ; I am tired of England, and you know I am never happy in the same place for long together. ' While Audrey was writing this letter the tears stood in her eyes, but she carefully concealed any trace of this in her tone. ' No, aunt Helen will never guess it,' she said, folding lip her note and putting it into an envelope with a sadly unsteady hand. The news of Miss Ashton's engagement came as a great surprise at Lorrimer Hall to all but Audrey; she acted her difficult part so well that no one guessed that the girl's heart was given to her aunt's lover, and little Mrs Huntley came to believe that she had made a great and most foolish mistake. At first Colonel Wrighton felt a little awkward, meeting her ; but her gay easy manner soon put him at his ease, and he spent so little of his time with them now that he and Audrey seldom met.

She was greatly changed, though they did not notice it; but Audrey knew within herself that a change had come. She found herself thinking more tenderly of her father, who was in ill-health. She did not take the same pride in her beauty, and she would sit and listen to the old clergyman with a feeling in her heart that Audrey had never known before; a feeling of a greater need of something to lean on—of help to bear the burden laid upon her young shoulders. Yet, at this Christmas time the girl seemed to lay aside whatever in her character was volatile and wanting in thoughtfulness. Trial has a chastening effect upon some hearts, and she was one of those whom it softens. Audrey had it in her to be a noble woman ; but she had wanted some great blow to develop her character, and the girl's misplaced love had given the necessary stimulus. In the solitude of her own room she often knelt now and prayed even as she had prayed in clmrck ; and the early lessons which she had learned at her mother's knee came back to her as if spoken yesterday, and Audrey hailed the coming Christmas with a new and different feeling in her heart from that with which she had usually looked forward to it. 'Miss Ashton, are you ill?' Edward Clayton asked one day as lie and she were walking back from decorating the little church. '111! Not I; I am never ill,' Audrey said. ' Why do you think so ? I am sure I take enough exercise. I am not often idle.' ' That is just it ; you seem to me to be troubled mentally, you are so restless now.' ' You mean I don't lounge about in my usual idle fashion. I am getting more sensible,' she said smiling, ' that's all.' ' Shall I see you in London next year ?' he asked. 'My sisters and mother will be going up. I had intended going to Germany, but there will be a greater attraction for me there if I may look forwai-d to meeting you than anywhere else in the world. 1 ' You will not meet me there,' Audrey answered. ' I am going away with papa to live quietly, far away from the gaiety of a London life. But I wish you would not speak to me like that, Mr Clayton. We have been such good friends, you and I, do let us part so.' ' Audrey, I cannot part so. I must tell you once—what I've no doubt you know quite well already—that I love you. I know

you look upon me as a boy, but your doing so does not in any way make me love you the less. I couldn't help loving you, even if I tried,' he said, a tone of his despair coming into his voice, 'it is as natural for me to love you, Audrey, as to live. I know lam utterly unworthy of you myself. lamin a position to marry, you know; the old estate comes to me. I don't mean to say I think that would make any difference to you, but if I were not in such a position I would not dare to ask you to be my wife.' She was silent. • Audrey, won't you speak to me ?' f I want you to tell me one thing,'she said. _ ' Have I ever tried to leave the impression on your mind that I cared for you, or wanted you to propose to me ?' 'Never.' 'Thank God,' she muttered to herself. ' Listen to me. You are mistaken; you really are far better in every way than I am. I know that, but I don't love you. I was once very unworthy,' she went on; *it gave me pleasure to feel that I had won a heart, though I had no intention of giving mine in return ; but it will never do so again. As we live we learn,' she said, thinking of what she herself was suffering then ; a pain that she had wautonly inflicted on others more than once. 'I am very sorry you think of me as you do, Mr Clayton, for we have been good friends, and might have continued so.' ' Then you could never think of me V he asked. ' No,' Audrey answered, ' I don't think so, and II believe I shall never marry any one. You are not angry with ?' holding out her hand as Wrightou had done to her. ' No, no ; I am not angry with you,' he said in an unsteady voice. ' I might have known you could not care for me, but, Audrey, I shall never love another woman;' and somehow, as she watched his figure disappearing among the'shrubbery as she turned to go up the steps, the girl believed him. # * * # # It's past and gone now, and the old church is growing gray in its Master's service. In some minds the memory of it is waxing dim, while others never go up the aisle and kneel before the altar without thinking of what lay there once, silent and cold, with a white face raised to heaven and closed eyes that had, they hoped, opened in Christ's home on His natal day. The tale has been told so often that they are tired of telling is dow. How the girl, before going back to her home that morning, had promised to fasten the last decoration over the altar; how that, the old sexton being weak and inactive, and she being young and strong, she had determined to put it up with her own hands. ' Bring the table and chair for me ; I can do it better than you, Robin.' They were brought, and lithe and active she had climed into her place. 'Now hold fast, Eobin, it's not very steady;' and by degrees she had dragged the long wreath to the wall, and had fastened the first part successfully. Just then the joy bells rang out, and she had paused to listen to their sound; and whether it was that the old man loosened his hold, or whether she lost her balance, no one knew how it happened, and Robin never recovered the shock enough to tell; but some how the chair on which she stood moved, swung round and then fell with a crash on the stone floor, and she—God help her ? fell too ; fell with her white forehead on the polished stone, and lay silent; and the tale went on that she there and then died. The old man hobbled off at once for help, and none of the story-tellers guessed that as she lay there alone a tall man had entered the church and found her; had knelt and raised her slight figure in his arnrs; had laid her pretty head upon his knee, and had tried to stanch the blood that stained the altar floor and drained away her young life. He smoothed back the silky hair from her beautiful pale face, and his touch reanimated her for a brief moment. She opened her eyes, and a glad rapturous smile spread itself over her white lips, and brought a slight flush into her cheek. She only knew that he was with her in this last moment, and that her head leaned against his shoulder as he knelt to support her, ' Are you better, dear ?' Claude Wrighton asked, feeling very thankful that she had become conscious. ' Oh, yes, much better ;' and then Audrey's eyes closed again. Strange death-bed this, in the silence of an old church bright with its Christmas decorations; the bells still ringing out joyously, and the chirp of the singing-birds sounding glad in the sunshine. Once again she opened her eyes and fixed them on his face : her lips moved ; he bent down to catch the words which might be the last those beautiful lips would ever speak. ' Pray for me, Claude, 1 am going away.' A deep voice in earnest solemn prayer sounded through the empty church —a prayer for a spirit going home.