LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 187, 14 January 1875, Page 3

LITERATURE.

A SUMMER’S HISTORY. ‘You think you love me well enough to trust your happiness in my hands, Robert?’ Margaret Wayne asked the question seriously. She wanted her lover to think what he was doing, in asking her to be his wife. ‘ I do not think : I know’ he answered, with all a lover’s eagerness, ‘ You will not tell me no, Margery ?’ ‘I will not tell you no,»-Robert,’ she answered, with a grave, sweet smile. He slipped a ring upon her finger : and bending down, lifted her face in his hands, and kissed her with a betrothal kiss.

‘ Mine now,’ he said, tenderly, ‘and mine always. ’ They had wandered into the orchard of the old Wayne homestead, and it was there he had made his offer. She sat on still under the large pear tree when he was gone, and thought it all over. A year ago, Robert Earl waa a stranger to her. Now he was her lover; her promised husband ; and she was happy. Mr Earl had settled in the neighborhood. He was an independent man, a gentleman, desirable in all ways. Margaret had learned to love him as one can love but once in this world.

Sitting there, she wondered if there had ever been so beautiful a day before. The sky was blue as it had ever been on any summer day since Eden. The growing, rich grass in the meadow crinkled like a sea when the warm south wind blew over it. The apple and pear trees were in full blossom, and the air was full of their delightful fragrance. Every wind that blew up the hill-side shook their pink-and-white leaves down about her like a shower of scented snow. Robins sang in the branches ; sang loud, and clear, and long; and over all the sun shone warm and bright. * A beautiful day in which to have such happiness come into my life,’ she said, softly, with a deep exultant stir of gladness at her heart. It was so sweet to know that he loved her best of anybody in the world : that they were to walk through life side by side.

‘ I wonder if I can accept this day’s sunshine as a prophecy of coming days ? I hope so. Dear Robert!’ And then she dropped her hands, and fell to musing in a quiet happy way, as maidens will, about the glad, beautiful dream of life, whose other name is love, By-and-by, she rose and went into the house : a substantial, old-fashioned dwelling, with a good deal of land attached to it. Mrs Wayne looked up from her work as she entered.

‘ Margery, here's a letter for you. It has come by the afternoon post. I think it is from May Callingford. ’ ‘Yes, it is from May,’ replied Margaret, as she opened it. ‘ She has accepted your invitation, mamma, and will come and stay all the summer. ’ ‘ I shall be very glad to see Mary s child, was the answer of Mr Wayne: Mary being her sister; but they had not met for many years. ‘ May was a baby when I saw her last: she is a woman grown now, I suppose. Dear! dear! How fast time runs away, and how people change. It does not seem so very long ago but you were a baby ton, Margery, and your father was alive: and yet how many years it is!’

Mrs Wayne looked thoughtfully away toward the hill where the church spire pointed heavenward. In the gra e r ard there, her husband slept beside the boy and firl who had gone to heaven before him. he often read the names carved on the three white stones, and wondered when hers would stand beside them.

‘ 1 am sure you will like her,’ Margery said that night to her lover, as they lingered by the gate, in the shadow of the great lilacbush, crowned right royally with nodding plumes of fragrant blossoms. ‘ I have never seen May, but I have her picture; and I have almost come to know her through her letters. Beautiful letters they are. I would read some of them to you, Robert, if I thought you’d like to hear them. ’ * I would rather hear you talk to me,’ he answered. ‘ Let me crown you, Margery.’ He broke some lilac-blossoms from their stalks, and wove them deftly into a wreath. When he had finished it he placed it on her brown hair. ‘Margaret, my queen,’he whispered, and bent to steal a kisS And she, looking in his blue smiling eyes and tender face, thought that no maiden had ever so true and brave a lover before. I wonder if every maiden, since the world began, has not thought the same thing ? All too many have. And all too many men have, like ’him, mistaken the liking born of companionship for love. Margaret plunged into a sea of small cares in preparation of this coming of her cousin, May Callingford. She felt a strange anxiety to see her, and to have her near her. Later, she wondered why it should have been so.

‘ I begin to be half-jealous of this wonderful cousin of yours,’ Robert said to her one day. ‘ You talk about her half your time : what will it be when she is here ? I shall be crowded into the shade completely, I suppose. I almost wish she wasn’t coming. ’ ‘ Now you ought to be ashamed to talk so ! ’ cried Margery, in jest. f I have not the least doubt but that I shall be the one to complain of being thrust into the shade, and no doubt I shall get fearfully jealous. Of course you will admire May’s pretty face —and she is pretty, we hear; and the first thing you’ll do will be to fall in love with her. The consequence will be, that I shall be neglected shamefully, all on account of man’s fickleness. Oh, you see, sir, that I understand all about you men!’ ‘ Wise little woman,’ laughed Robert. ‘ From personal experience, I suppose?’ ‘From keeping my eyes and ears open,’ answered Margery. * But I thought you had faith in me?’ he said, touching the brown hair that shaded her smiling, peaceful face. ‘Well, yes, I have a little faith in you,’ she admitted.

‘ I don’t see how you can have, taking your knowledge of the fickleness and insincerity of men into consideration,’ returned Mr Earl, his fingers still lingering on the soft hair. ‘ I should like to]hear you explain the seeming inconsistency. ’ ‘ Well, you see,’ with a laugh that was as happy as a bird’s song, ‘ you are not exactly like other men. I think you are a trifle—just a trifle, mind—better than most of them. And then, you know that you of the stronger sex have a belief which passes current among you, to the effect that a woman is never consistent. Either will explain why I happen to put a little faith in you, sir.” ‘A good specimen of feminine logic,’ ho said, laughingly. ‘ How does it happen that you think me just a trifle better than most men, Margery?’ ‘ Because—because—I —care perhaps just a little for you,’ was Margery’s answer, driven into a corner. And Robert Earl laughed until she blushed again. The day of Miss Callingford’s arrival came ; and Mr Earl happened to be there. All looked at her eagerly. A girl with a sweet clear face, out of which shone a pair of the most beautiful eyes Robert Earl had ever seen ; large, and almost like a child’s in their innocent expression, and blue as early violets. There was something about them that made him think of that flower. From under the pretty straw hat, soft yellow hair fell fifabout her face, and hung over her shoulders almost to her waist.

‘You are May, I know,’ cried Margaret, impulsively running to her. ’We cannot tell you how welcome you are, and how we have longed for this day. ’ And for some moments there was nothing but greeting. ‘ This is my cousin May, Mr Earl,’ said Margaret, proud of introducing one who had so fair and sweet a face.

‘ I am truly happy to meet your cousin May,’ said Robert, gravely; yet with a twinkle of mischief in his eyes, and a shy look at Margaret, who blushed beneath the inquiring glance which May gave her. May gave him her hand, and said a few half-embarrassed words; but they were enough to make him feel that he should like her. He had a theory that the first few words of a stranger always afforded him a kind of revelation of what the acquaintance was to be, by the way in which they affected him. If that theory held good in this case, the acquaintance would be a pleasant one. In the evening, coming in to tea, he met her again. She wore a dress of some soft white material, with a knot of pale green at the throat, and a cluster of white geraniums in her hair. ‘She is a beautiful little thing,’thought Robert. ‘ She Is like my ideal of Undine.’ Before tea was half over, he felt, as if he must have known May for years. He said as much in a half-jesting way. ‘Perhaps that fancy of someone’s, that you were reading to me the other day, is true,’ spoke up Margaret. ‘ You know what I mean, don’t you, Robert ? The fancy that we have been with people, somewhere and sometime, and yet we know that we and they have never before met. ’ ‘ But how can it be ? ’ asked May.

* Well, the idea in the book was that in some other life, some other stage of existence, we knew them, and that when we met in this life for the first time, some strange instinct that could hardly bo called memory told us that we had not always been strangers to each other. Pretty and fanciful, is it not, May ? ’ ‘lt would make a beautiful poem,’ answered May.

* So that probably accounts for your feeling of having known her, Robert, ’ laughed Margaret.

There was some singing later. Margaret was a fine musician ; played with peculiarpower, and sang with a great deal of true feeling and expression. She had a low sweet voice, which was just suited to some of the old ballads that we so seldom hear in these artificial days —for both the songs and the times are artificial now'. May' Calling-

ford sang next, Her voice was as sweet as r bird s. Robert Earl involuntarily thought ■f dropping water as he listened to its liquid softness. ‘ Sing that new song that you were trying this morning, Margaret,’ said Mrs Wayne. ‘I liked it.’ A moment’s hesitation on Margaret’s part she knew not why, and th n she looked out the song, and began. The air was touchingly tender and sweet in itself ; the accompaniment was full of plaintive minor chords, lil e an undertone of sorrow that no words could express. The words were sad as any words could well be; and, sung in Margaret’s expressive way, they seemed to come from her own heart:—

When I am covered with the grass, If my low grave you chance to pass, Oh pause one moment, one, I pray, And in that surely-coming day. Say, as you pluck the pimpernel, “ Here lieth one who loved me well.” And so I shall not be forgot; You’ll miss me, though you love me not. Love is so sweet a memory That, though it came to you from me, You’ll think of it, and thrill to tell That one has lived who loved you well. Oh ! when you pass my grave, and see The blossoms blooming for the bee, And hear the south-wind saying mass, Like wandering friars who chance to pass. O’er incense cups of pimpernel, Oh, think of her who loved you well! The last low chord of the accompaniment died away like a sigh. There was a silence in the room after Margaret had finished the song. It seemed to affect them strangely. She had put so much soul into it that it was hardly like a song. It was more like the passionate plaint of a heart to whom love had been denied ; a heart trying, in a pitiful way, to find some little consolation in the thought that, after all, it would not be quite forgotten. . May broke the silence. ‘I don’t like your song, Margaret,’ she said, with a shiver. ‘ It is sorrowfully sweet, but I don’t like it. I sha’n’t forget it the whole evening. I never could sing such sad things.’ ‘ And yet such songs strike deeper chords in our hearts than any other,’ was Margaret’s answer. ‘I never tire of songs like this. Your gay ones, with not a bit of heart and soul in them, I always sing under protest. ’ * But how sad that life must be which can truly give forth so sorrowful a cry as that which runs through the song you sang,’ observed Miss Callingford, looking thoughtfully towards the hills bathed in summer moonlight. *lt must be the sadde&u thing in life to be obliged to sit apart, and see others loving and being loved, while your heart calls for something which is always denied it.’ ‘ It would be far better to die,’ said Margaret, earnestly. ‘lf I loved anyone with my whole heart, and that love should be thrown aside as unvalued, or unwelcome, I should wish to die !’

‘So you say now, returned May. * But if you were put to the test ’ ‘lf I were put to the test,’ interrupted Margaret, ‘it would be the same. I could not alter. Life to me without love would be valueless.’ * ’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all,’ quoted May, laughing. ‘Not unless the loss be occasioned by death,’ answered Margaret, with strange gravity, * and that, after all, is not a loss. It is merely a parting; you are still able to look forward to a meeting which shall be eternal. I speak only of the alienation of the heart. This, indeed, is a change far worse than that of death.’

‘You feel strongly on this point,’ said May. ‘ That is the reason, Margaret, that you put so much pathos into your song—that terrible song,’ she added, with a shudder. ‘lt seemed to come straight up from your heart. And yet you have had no experience of this kind,’ ‘No,’ replied Margaret, with a half-sad smile. ‘ But we know many things by intuition. We are, most of us, constitutionally happy or melancholy; the bent of our nature is to to be one or the other. We cast trouble aside when it comes to us, or we meet it half-way. I fear lam of the latter class. I ha\ e not enough hope to make me of a cheerful temperament; I need the help of, and am greatly influenced by, externals.’ ‘ A path strewed with roses, for instance, from which the thorns have been extracted,’ laughed May. ‘A fairy godmother, to change pumpkins into coaches, and find you a prince for a husband.’ Margaret blushed, and lookedshily towards Robert. Her prince had come without the aid of any fairy godmother. She felt half vexed with May for the remark. ‘You are jesting now,’ she replied, quietly. ‘ But it is a subject I cannot jest with. Real sadness is so terrible. And I have always had a presentiment that my life would be a sad one. ’ ‘ I know no one whose life should be more happy,’ returned May. ‘No one whose future seems to me so fair and promising. You have been reared in a home of peace and plenty; and you will leave it under the protection of one ’ . To he continued.