LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 373, 23 August 1875, Page 4

LITERATURE.

BELINDA MASON’S ROMANCE. HOW IT COMMENCED, HOW IT WENT ON, AND HOW IT ENDED. Continued: I wish I could say that Belinda did not take in an illustrated young ladies’ paper in penny numbers; I am forced to admit she did, and though her own fancies were teeming enough in all concience, still if a whip or spur were needed to goad them on, the tales in these marvellous pages amply supplied it. Belinda settled in her own mind that Mrs Shepherd’s lodger was a young doctor, practising at the hospitals ; the interesting paUor of his face, the intensity of his eyes, added force to this idea. Tb the ordinary observer a doctor is rather an unromatic individual than otherwise, but not so to Belinda; to her the medical profession seemed clothed with a thousand charms, and instinct with mystery, awe, and grandeur. Was not Dr Pillule, the apothecary in the next street, one of the class-leaders at the chapel ? was he n'6t an acquaintance of which her mother was justly proud ? and did not Belinda her self feel an agony of bashfulness and gratification after a shake from his long, thin, grasping fingers ? Belinda, too, had spent many an hour of horrided joy over the “ Reminiscences of a Retired Physician, a pd> doubtless, Mr Shepherd’s lodger was daily and hourly meeting adventures similar to those depicted in that most thrilling of all thrilling volumes. ‘ Belinda now lived a double life, though she might be nimbly stitching- away at caps and bonnets; though she might be selling stamps and post cards, and envelopes; though the shop bell and the word * shop I might be sounding in her ears, still in imagination she was driving into town, en gaged in consultations, superintending operations, bustling here, and bustling there. She was, in fact, no longer herself, the shadow of the new comer was not with him more perpetually than she was. To look at her—a slight, fragile creature, something like a wood-sorrel blossom, with its delicate pink veins—to see her gliding about, silent almost to taciturnity, who could guess all that was seething and boiling, and bubbling up underneath, after the manner of a hot-water spring.

Belinda felt it necessary to give the object of her thoughts a name—a local habitation he had, but name, as yet, he had none. In order to find this out two courses were open to her, either to inquire from Mrs Shepherd or her maid Susan, or to utilise the postoffice. She resolved upon the latter course ; always shy, she was shyer than ever about the new comer; she carefully locked and doubly locked all thoughts of him back in the farthest iron box of her heart. Early one morning when the mails came in, she espied a long, thin blue envelope,; lying in a comer 1 ; her very finger-tips seemed to know who it was for ; and the rapturous blood rushed hither and thither, as if it must bring out its rosy tumult to the light. She turned the > envelope up, and read ‘ Augustus Vansittart, Esq., care of Mrs Shepherd, Bridge street, Mery on.’ The direction was written in pale ink with a fine steel pen. ‘Augustus Vansittart 1’ why, this was better and better. I don’t deny _ that Belinda would have received a shock if she had read John Jones or Thomas Smith; it was a shock that she might have recovered, but she would have experienced it, nevertheless. Augustus Vansittart, however, left nothing to be desired: it was at once euphonious, uncommon, and generally satis factory in every way. Mrs Shepherd’s lodger had acquired an additional charm, and he reigned more vie toriously than ever in poor Belinda’s heart; in fact, no rivalship was possible. Late one Sunday evening, just as May was ‘ gliding into June,’ Belinda returned from chapel with her mother. She stood alone at the street door, reluctant to go into the close house, reluctant to leave the hazy bine of the ksy that was so very blue, and all * the mighty ravishments of spring,’the little buds and grasses that were brooding, and growing, and bursting into the silent rapture of their life, even in the dusty suburb of Meryon. It was Mrs Mason’s sombre taste which had dictated the grey hue of Belinda’s dress, and the plain white of the Sunday bonnet, which, with its wide strings, Was tied in a bulky bow-knot under the child’s dimpled chim; but Belinda herself had fastened a large pink cabbage rose in the front of her dress, and this rose seemed to make her a part of itself, and to shed a glowing atmosphere of colour and fragrance about her. As Belinda stood at the door, she watched the passers-by with some curiosity. There was Dr Pillule, with his head proudly erect, and his grey beard spreading, magnificent and pompous, over his broad chest. He was, no doubt, pondering over Mr Pinfold’s sermon, and marking out in his own niind the Joints which that reverend divine ought to ave made, and hadn’t. Then, ’ there' was Miss Danby, the tele-graph-girl, who worked at the post-office all the \yeek, and was now gorgeousin pink and lilap, and rejoicing in the double luxury of a Sunday wait and a favoured follower. As Belinda Ipoked after her, a whiff of tobaccosmok4 came on the air: it was! —no, it wasn’t—yes ! it was, Mrs Shepherd’s lodger, who' •Was strolling up the street with his hands in his pocket, and his cigar in his moiith. Catching sight of Belinda, he now crossed the street, and stopped before her. * We have a fine evening,’ said he, lifting his hat, and throwing away his cigar. ‘ Ye-es,’ whispered silly, timid Belinda, half beside herself with fright and joy. " <Y6u have been to church ?’ glancing at her hymn-book, ' ‘ hTot to church, to chapel. ’ ‘Ah! to chapel. I have never been to chapel in my life.’ ‘Never!’ and Belinda raised her grave, questioning eyes— ‘ Never ?’ ‘ No; but perhaps I may go some day.’ * Mr Pipfojd is an excellent preacher,’ remarked Belinda, demurely, * I shouldn’t go to hear Pinfold. ’ ‘ Shonlcl’nt you ? Then Mr Dewhurst. ’ , ‘ No, nor, Mr Dewhurst; I should only go’ , . here comes a pause, and bending downwards into Belinda’s half averted falteripg face. ‘ I should only go, if you would takp the trouble to bring me. ‘Belinda!’, Belinda!’ called Mrs Mason’s voice from the top story. * What are you about, child ? why don’t ( you come in directly, and shut the front door ; you don’t know what tramps may be about so late on a Sunday night!’ . ‘ I suppose I must go,’ said Belinda, shyly putting out her slender hand in its Sunday |rey.iftukglove* ‘Goodnight,’ 1 ,'jjii/mv/oo ajdtanwq tauJ v,auiiuu o x juJ

‘ Good night,’ Miss Belinda.’ And then . . . then there r was no more. But as Belinda tripped up the stairs, she discovered that she had lost her pink cabbage rose, and looking down from the bedroom window, she saw—she actually saw Mr Yansittart picking up some of the loose crumpled leaves. Then a great joy, as pink and fresh as the rose had been, cropped out and burst over little Belinda’s spirit, which till now had had been grave and dull enough. Did not King Cophetua once love a beggar-maid, and why might not this wonderful new comer condescend even to her ? ‘ Belinda,’ said Mrs Mason, as she tied her night-cap strings—(a formidable object that night-cap was, with its stern, prickly border) —‘ do you remember the heads of Mr Pinfold’s discourse this evening ?’ ‘I think I do, mother.’ * I hope so. I hope you remember what he said about broken cisterns—it was under the last head —and how necessary is it that we should lay it to heart. We are all too fond of hewing out for ourselves broken cisterns that can hold no water. This is a wilderness world, Belinda, as Mr Pinfold often said, and truly I have found it so ; it is an hospital world, too, full of sick and impotent people, who don’t know how sick they are. Small comfort shall we find here.’ And Mrs Mason sighed. ‘ Yes, yes, mother, I know, I know; but let me alone, I want to go to sleep.’ Mrs Mason shook her head, as she extinguished the candle. This impatience, this evident restlessness on Belinda’s part was another sign of the old Adam, and Mrs Mason groaned deeply to see it. It was ab surd for Belinda to talk of sleep ; whenever she closed her eyes, she only saw Mr Vansittart picking up her scattered rose leaves; and those low, languid accents of his, so different from the harsh twang of the butchers and bakers about Bridge street — how they sounded in her ears. Poor Belinda ! if any one does not live in a glass house of his own, and wishes to throw stones at her, let him do it, and welcome, I confess I cannot. ... I myself. . . . But no matter, ([To he continued.')