LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 188, 15 January 1875, Page 3

LITERATURE.

A SUMMER'S HISTORY. Contimied. ' Be quiet,' cried Margaret, laughing, in spite of herself. ' It is true that my life hitherto has known no carea but the cares of others. I have had none of my own. But I often observe, that in proportion to the happiness of the early life so is the trouble and care of the later. I don't know why it should be; but it is so. No doubt it is for some good end. I remember some years ago having my fortune told— —". 'Oh, Margie,' interrupted May, pretending to be shocked. ' By an old witch in a red clock, no doubt, who walked on a stick and was bent half double. With nose and chin that met like a pair of nut-crackers. Confess to the portrait. 'You must have seen her in a dream,' replied Margaret, laughing. 'You have described her exactly. Only you have- not done justice to her eyes; they were the blackest, most piercing eyes I ever saw.. I wake up sometimes with those eyes upon me.' 'And you crossed her hand with silver,' continued May. ' For that she would promise you a duke. Or perhaps you even crossed it with gold, and were promised a prince. Fie, Margaret; could you put faith in an old witch?' ' I know not whether she could lay claim to the title of witch,' replied Margaret, firmly ; ' But this I do know. She described some of my past life so accurately; things she could never have known ; that I almost felt I was wrong in putting no faith in what she said of my future.' ' And what said she of that future ?' asked May, whose curiosity was aroused, in spite of her pretended ridicule. ' I cannot tell you all,' replied Margaret, with a shudder. ' But I will tell you a little. She looked long and closely at my hand with her keen black eyes have you ever noticed my hand,' said Margaret, interrupting herself, and holding it out for May's inspection. ' Look at it, May.' May took the white, delicate hand, and examined the palm. It was strangely covered with lines, crossing and recrossing each other. No part was free. f Do you observe the creases ?' said Margaret. ' Examine it by your own.' May's was comparatively smooth and free from lines. 'A strange difference indeed,' said May. ' But you don't put faith in this nonsense. Margaret ? What said the old witch ?' 'She said, looking, as I have told you, long and closely into my hand, ' Your past life, young lady, has been happy ; free from trouble; free from any eventful circumstance. At the age of twenty a great change in life will come to you. Then beware.- Your last hour will be at hand.' ' How shall I find my death, good mother?' I asked, half in ridicule, half frightened.' . "I cannot see,' she answered. ' The line of life is dim; the end is concealed from me. But this I see; you will not die a natural death; you will not die in your bed. Yet you will not die by illness; you will not die By water. I dare not look further. I can only say beware. Refuse the change when it comes; oontinue for some years to live as you have lived hitherto, and I see that you will be saved, and you may live to a green old age. Despise my warning, and you are lost.'^ Margaret ceased speaking, and May did not reply. In Margaret's eyes there was a sad, far away look, that seemed to l enetrate into the future; a future without happiness. Robert Earl had not spoken. Suddenly he began wondering what Margaret would do if he were to desert her for another. It was a strange thought, he told himself, to come into his head, then and there; but it did come, and he could not get rid of it. All the evening it haunted him; that, and the sad look in Margaret's eyes. It was with him when he walked home, "and when he undressed to go to rest, The days flew by swiftly, as pleasant days do fly. Mrs Wayne had said to Robert Earl, ' You must be with us a great deal, to help entertain my niece; I should not like her to find this place more dull than it is.' And he had acquiesced readily. jSo that he saw much of May Callingford : he grew to seek to be with her. He liked to talk with her, and watch her beautiful eyes grow darker and wider at some new thought, or some sudden play of fancy. He half thought he could tell what she was thinking of by her face, it was so full of child-like frankness. From the first May had liked Robert Earl. He was so different from any man she had ever known before. But in what the difference consisted, she could not have told herself : and not a suspicion yet dawned upon her that it was caused by love : that she was learning to love him. ' How noble Robert is!' she said one night to Margaret. ' I don't know why I like him so well; but I never cared half so much for anyone before. I think you ought to be very proud of him, Margie. I quite envy you. The last words were spoken in a playful way ; but Margaret saw that there was more meaning in them than she intended to show. Beneath their lightness there ran a vein of earnestness. It made itself apparent in the thoughtful eyes and serious brow which May turned towards the hills, lying wrapt in holy peaceful silence, beneath the benediction of the moonlight. And Margaret's heart gave a sudden throb that was full of keen pain, Was her cousin learning to Jove Robert? She could not wonder much if it were so, for who could help loving him? But oh, not with her love! No, no ! Her heart rebelled against that. She wanted him for herself ; and no one else must look with yearu,ine eyes upon that which belonged to her, and her alone. It is curious haw a chance word, light as the lightest wind, will set us to thinking and watching sometimes. Those words of May's had that effect on Margaret. She lay awake half that night, thinking. What if May loved Robert? She tried to put the thought out of her mind, but it would not leave her. ..,'■ A 'How foolish lam!' she thought, M3f course, it would not make 'the slightest difference between Robert and me, if all the Mays in the world loved him. He cares for me—has he not told me so ?—and for no one else in the whole world. Nevertheless, that foolish question—that thought—kept repeating itself over and over for hours in Margaret's mind. She could not forget it while she slept: worse still, she could not forget it in awaking. Was it the shadow of some evil substance ? In spite of herself, Margaret watched them when they were together next day; she

could not help it. As TMi Earl entered, she saw May's face grow hot and glad and bright; and—she fancied that his aid. Then she blamed herself for being so foolish as to imagine any such thing. He liked May as his cousin—who could held liking her ? and he had that low-voiced,- caressing way with women. . • ;....; But from that time there was» dark cloud over Margaret's sky. It grew large and black. For, try to hide the truth as she might, she could not conceal the knowledge from herself, that no common friendship existed between her cousin and the man she had promised to marry. She read the bitter fact in sudden glances of tenderness, in low ■ words, which in themselves revealed nothing but in whose cadences love spoke in that strange and wordless language of itsowniT i She could interpret it because it was a language she had been learning to read the . sweetest lesson of life in. ' "• \*vi :-i : •■'•-. At first she fought against the bitter truth. She would not believe that the man who had won her love; and who, before • heaven, was her promised husband, had no longer the true atfection for her that she had once boasted of! She tried; to believe that • she was self-deceived : that she was jealous of her lover without a cause, because she loved him so, and wanted him always at her side in a foolishly exacting way. iaJd But there will come a tune when oar eyes, which we shut against a bitter truth, must open, and we have to look the matter fairly and squarely in the face. And that time came to Margaret. ■ -z ■■* r. . •' ■-■.-,:•.'. She was in the garden one day alone. Her countenance of late had grown sad* full of thought ul shadows; and, as she walked '■' up and down the paths slowly, a great pai» showed itself in her eyes, and in the Junes around her mouth. • I i a. , *r . f And I losing him ?' she cried, passionately. : ' 'AmI to see him go over to another ?" And* > 1 I thought helovedmeso well! Hetoldme" ' so! He told me so !' •'■'•'-■• -- : "■•"' Just then she heard the murmur of Voices, and, looking up, saw May and Robert going slowly towards the house, on the other side the shrubbery. The foliage concealed her' from them. Robert was saying something to May in 7 ' ' a low, earnest tone. Margaret could not ■'■"•' tell what it was, but something in his look and manner made her for the moment faint and dizzy. The words reached her ears. '• •God bless you, my darling !' And then ' Robert Earl—her lover—bent - suddenly;'' - r and kissed May's face, which was wet witb ,rr tears. • •" ■'■■ -•-" - > *« >aUi h Oh, Robert!' May cried, [* you forget !•'' m I have told you, you 1 must not forgets '■fljsiu "f gairet is the only one who has a right to yorar ' kisses. Nay, 1 must not listen : though yott : do love me, you must still be true to your promise to her. I wish I had never coriie ■' here. If I had stayed away, you and ■''' Margaret might have been happy; "but ■"'' now ' May Callingford's voice broke down in tears, and she turned and ran away towards the house, ieaving Robert standing there alone, with a grave and shadowed face. Alas ! it was true that' love had come to him. - Could Margaret make believe to deceive herself longer? At last she knew the truth: she stood face to face with it. He loved her! Robert Earl/ who was dearer to her than her whole life, loved '!"'.' another. And that other her cousin, beautiful May! She kept repeating the hard true over and over, as she stood there in the garden; and it seemed as if every bird's song said the same thing. For hours she paced up and down the walks, thinking, thinking, thinking! What should she do? Should she give him back his freedom; and thus, with her own hands, put all the sunshine out of her life which his love had brought into it? A whole, whole life without him! Her heart cried out against that. But could, she marry him, knowing that he loved another? Could she lay claim to that heart which she had ' once thought hers,'but waa hers no longer? No, no! * Where is May?' she asked when she went in. And Mrs Wayne replied that May had a headache and was lying on the sofa in the quiet little breakfast-parlor. "' ' ~"!.' ~,'r .. ! The young ladies shared the 'same ije4- r „ room. May went up first .that nighjt, under I '' plea of her headache; and Margaret hoped she would be in her bed and asleep. ~ But no. When -Margaret went. was sitting ' : . by. the "window, with a strange, pitiful lookjou , herface, . ~ ~'„ .:'„.'/.:.."., <oh, Margie! Margie!' she cried, when her! cdusin came in, '1 am,so miserable., Jfou ' t ,i dpn'tknow, you canjt know .what it-jU/arid ; 14-1 cannot tell you. And bending her head r upon the window-ledge/ the girl sobbed as if [. "~ her heart was breaking. .V 'I do know,' Margaret said, 4 softly. .: . .May flashed a sudden, frightened look into her cousin's face. !No one can know. - It is not possible.' * ' I am not blind,' answered Margaret, M calmly and kindly aa might be, but there was a strange sound of pain in her voice. ? I see. how it is, May, and. I think it will all come right. If you love each, other, I will not stand between you.' No one but herself and Cod ever knew what an awful struggle it cost her to say that. The words left her lips white as ; death. ':;..-. .-. i 'Margie, are you an angel?' gasped May. ' Only an angel could offer to give up a life's hope and happiness to another. Do you think 1 am base enough to accept it, at that price? ftever, never!' ,r.o''.r, •But, May,'—and Margaret's voice was low and steady now,—'l want a man's whole love; a love that is given freely. Could I take Robert Earl because he thinks I have a claim on any promise he may have made, before he tully understood his love has left me—do you think I could be his wife? ' But he does love you!' returned May, •earnestly. 'Yes, he told me so to.day. The—the fancy he took for dh is notreaj; . oh, dear! oh, dear! T wish I had r . 'nover come here, Margie! r If Robert and I had, never met, lie would! never have dreamed of! loyiijg anyone else but you., I have • brought trouble to you/ and to him, and to ■myself, and lam not to blame, Margie. I wish you would believe that!' added. May, earnestly, lifting her great, blue eyes to iYlargaret's face; and they were too truthful to 1 be doubted. Margaret spoke not. She listened for more. Was there hope for her yet! To ie cantinved.