LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 252, 2 April 1875, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE BOODLE ROMANCE. (From Tinsley's Magazine.) Chapter 11. (Continued.) 'She was a fair little maid,' said this wooden-visaged gentleman, • with large blue eyes and long golden hair, just like Miss Mari.' Boodle piicked up his ears. ' Peace, beating heart!' said he to himself. 1 Oh, if this should prove to be she !' Then he continued in a rational tone, aloud, ' But who is Miss Mari ?' «Why, dunno ye know? Did ye norra see Missus Lloyde's niece?' ' No,' replied Boodle. ' You cannot mean Mrs Lloyde of the Ap Shenkin Inn ?' ' Of course I do mean un,' replied the man; ' who else ?' Boodle gave the man a sovereign, the largeness of which amount so stupefied him that he could only gaze at it in silent wonder, while Boodle walked off as fast as his legs would carry him towards the inn. Just as he entered the door he overheard one maidservant say to another that Miss Mari wouldn't be in till the evening. He gave a heavy sigh of disappointment, and taking out his diary made a note to this effect : • I have just been told a harrowing tale of a poor girl who was shut up in a dungeon and pined away her life there. Alas, so it is that true love, when it is found, is blighted and destroyed! My heart was full of sorrow for the poor maiden thus doomed, when the man told me something that caused my heart to forget its sadness. In describing the poor captive's beauty he compared it to that of Miss Mari, the niece of the landlady of the Ap Shenkin. She is now absent, but when she returns I can judge for myself of her worth and beauty. Oh, if she should be the realisation of my ideal! Mari! Mari! what a pretty name.' Just as Boodle laid down his pen the land lady entered the room and inquired if the gentleman desired his dinner. ' How can the woman ask me such a question?' said Boodle to himself, as he politely signified his disinclination to eat anything and his wish to be left alone. The landlady withdrew, and Boodle began to repent of his hasty decision. ' What if, for the want of proper nourishment, I should not have strength to address her, and she should think me a fool?' thought he The idea was so horrible that he recalled the landlady and had dinner served, which he despatched with the air of performing an extremely disagreeable duty. Our Boodle then mooned about until evening, when he saw Mari. The result of his observation may be found in the following extract from his diary: ' The one joy wanting in my life has come at last. My eyes have seen her! my lips have spoken to her! and my heart has whispered to me that my trip to Wales has not been taken in vain ! She came in the dusk of the evening, when all nature is hushed in repose, and, as Longfellow says, the influence of the hour wakes the better thoughts that have slumbered throughout the day. She came into the room where I was sitting talking with her aunt. It was nearly dark and I could not see her face, but her form was sylph-like and her footsteps fell lightly as those of a ministering angel. '"Thou hast been a long time away," said her aunt. •" I could not help it, aunty;. I was so absorbed in reading, and watching the ships

sailing in the bay, that I quite forgot how the time passed. ' She loved reading, then ! A similarity of tastes already ! And, oh, what a soft low voice she had. I had fallen into a wak ing dream of bliss, when her aunt's voice broke the silence : ' " Mari, you surely do not see that I have a visitor." ' She turned quickly. As she did so the servant brought a light. I saw her face, and, oh, my wildest dreams never pictured aught half so fair. A proud little head, and a delicately - arched neck ; but I could make out nothing of her face except her eyes, they were so dazzlingly beautifnl. Aided by the supernal splendour of the golden hair that formed a halo round her head, she seemed to me like some Elysian vision that would vanish even while I gazed upon it in rapture. 'Mr Frederic Boodle,' said the aunt, 'my niece Mari.'

1 1 do not know what I replied. I know that I said something gallant, for she blushed divinely and showed a set of perfect ivory teeth. What followed Ido not know. I try to think, but those glorious eyes and that bewitching smile flash upon me from the paper; so I can do no more than sit and gaze upon them, fascinated by the glory of their loveliness.' Boodle had found his flower at last. Boodle was hopelessly in love, and I must confess not without reason. Mari was pretty nay more she was beautiful ; and when I, who am not in love with her, say this, how could you expect Boodle to say less than he did? The intimacy between them ripened every day, and Boodle became more and more enamoured. He tried to indite verses, but after spoiling all his available paper he gave it up in despair. Then he drew upon the valise for some of the imaginative stores therein contained, and would read them aloud in some secluded spot to the empress of his affections. She was charmed, and thought Boodle more of a hero than all the fascinating youths of whom she had read; for Mari, until some six months ago, had spent all her life at an English boardingschool, and there had acquired ideas closely resembling Boodle's own. So the course of true love ran exceptionally smooth ; and had any one being on familiar terms with Cupid, he likely would have been bored to death with the self congratulations of le bon dieu d'amours on the success of his shaft. One day Boodle and Mari were together on the summit of a high cliff overlooking the sea. Mari was seated on a fallen tree, while Boodle reclined upon the grass in true lover-like attitude, reading of how the penniless secretary wooed the daughter of the purse-proud earl. Boodle read on to the end of the chapter, where the icy pride of the wealthy heiress at last gave way, and she laid her head upon the breast of him of poor but respectable antecedents, and there sobbed out the confession of her reciprocating passion. Pausing to give greater force to the passage, Boodle heard a gentle sigh. Boodle, taking this as a sign of a kindred feeling with the wealthy heiress, cast aside the book. ' Is it not touching?' said Boodle, a little nervously. ' Charming,' replied Mari, earnestly. ' Mari,' continued Boodle, with a darkly mysterious air, and his face the tint of the Red Rover's battle flag; 'I am like that humble lover. I, too, am humble, and love a lady so far above me that it seems almost sacrilege to wish her mine.' 'ls she very beautiful ?' solicitously inquired Mari, with guileless simplicity. • Beautiful!' echoed Boodle; ' she is transcendently lovely ! No feeble words of mine can express a tithe of her loveliness.' ' Oh, how I should love to know her !' exclaimed Mari enthusiastically. Then in a despairing tone: ' But she is far away in England, I suppose.' 'Mari,' replied Boodle, with his countenance of the same sanguineous hue as before, and with a look that bespake a pitying horror for her ignorance, ' she is none other than your own sweet self ! Yes, Mari; I have loved you from the first moment I saw you. I have never loved any one but you. 0 Mari,' continued Boodle, dropping on one knee in true three-volume post-octavo style, 'will you be mine?' She cast down her eyes and blushed. She softly laid her hand upon his; and Boodle, knowing very well what that meant, clasped her to his heart. 'And can you. my own, own love,' he yelled insanely, ' can you sacrifice all for a poor banker's clerk with only a hundred pounds a year, and not even a noble name to offer you? Oh, no, my love; take back your hasty promise, and let me go and crawl into some hole to die of a broken heart, for I cannot accept such a sacrifice !' And in proof of his assertionhe clasped her closer than ever. ' 0 Frederic darling,' she murmured, 'my heart is wherever you are; and should you leave me now in my new-found happiness, my heart would break.' ' Noble girl!' said he, as rapturously as though he were an ogre to whom a broken heart was a delicacy not to be found every day; and then he kissed her again and again. After a while sorrowfully remarked Boodle—' Mari darling, my holiday will very soon be at an end, and I shall have to return to my lonely labor. Oh, say, Mari love, will you not go with me as my wife V Marie assented. Her aunt also gave her consent ; and so the very next Sunday the clergyman requested to know if any one had any objection to make against these two pei*sons being joined together; and no one answered nay. But the clergyman, being a very scrupulous old gentleman, found it necessary to aak the very same question on the two following Sundays, and as all present held their peace his scruples were removed, and he informed Boodle that he waa quite willing to hind him fast in holy matrimony. So one line morning this no longer scrupulous old gentleman arrayed himself in his surplice and took his stand before the altar, while Boodle and Mari kneeled before him. And all the inhabitants of the village, including the oldest, were there, and took a great interest in the proceedings. Boodle gave the clergyman five pounds, which was very well for a banker's clerk who rad only a hundred to last him for three hundred and sixty-five days; and there was a shining new carriage with a pair of restless horses waiting at the door; and Boodle handed Mari inside, and then followed, upon which all the inhabitants set up a great cheer, and the happy pair drove rapidly away to where they could take a cheaper mode of convey, ance to London, where Mr Frederic Boodle was to resume his situation at the banker's oftfik (To he continued,)