LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 375, 25 August 1875, Page 4

LITERATURE.

BELINDA MASON'S EOMANCE. HOW IT COMMENCED, HOW IT WENT ON, AND HOW IT ENDED. Continued. I disturbed you, Miss Belinda, said Mr Vansittart, smiling friendlily; 'lam sorry OT ' No. sir, not at all. . . that is. . . I was. . . " Belinda stopped, her words had got into hopeless confusion, and would not be disentangled. 'Oh ! no matter, no matter," interrupted Mr Vansittart, ' I often take a nap myself in hot weather, and frightfully cross 1 am too when I am disturbed. I came over Miss Belinda, to ask your assistance, and I hope you will be good enough to cive it to me. There is a terrible wind out to-day, as;you may perceive, and it has blown off my luckless hat now less than three times ; just now it was nearly in the river, and I was thinking I should have to come home bare-headed, to the derision of all the small boys in the neighbourhood.—You sell elastic, I believe.' 'Yes sir.' *By the way, Belinda, why do you call me'sir?'it sounds so cold, so chilling that sir; my name happens to be AugustusAugustus Vansittart.' * sir* «There you are again with your * sir j I don't like the sound of it all. But about this elastic ; give me a yard of it, please, and oblige me by sewing it on. I have no neat little fingers over the way to do anything for me.' So Belinda measured off the elastic, got out her needle and thimble, and sat down as demurely as you please, to commence her operations on Mr Vansittart's hat. For my part, I think a pin would have done that young man fully as well, but he did not seem to be of this opinion ; lolling over the counter, with his hair tossed over his brow, and the perfume of his cigar smoke diffusing itself round Mrs Mason's neat shop, he superintended Belinda's handiwork. I say Belinda sat down demurely; but, my patience, what an army of beats and throbs and thrills were underneath that quiet, greyclad figure, and behind those down-bent eyelids, with their long brown fringe. 'You sew uncommonly well, Miss Belinda,' observed Mr Vansittart; I watch your fingers flying along like lightning, and I see the gleam of your thimble flashing up and down like a fire-fly.' * Mother says I don't sew neatly at all, answered Belinda, taking courage; and her ahy eyelids quivered upwards just the twentieth part of an inch. ♦Then she says wrong; I know better. By the way, Belinda, when are you going to take me to Mr Pinfold's ?' 'We go twice every Sunday,' replied Belinda evasively, ' and to the prayer meeting, on Wednesday, besides.' «You do, do you ? you must be terribly good, Belinda.' « Good ! oh, no, I am not, I am very, very bad,' and Belinda, off her guard, looked up an eager denial at his inquiries : he smiled in return, and a smile improved him amazingly, it had the effect of an illumination; not only were his teeth white and even, but a sudden flash seemed to come over his otherwise dark face, and to light it up with a peculiar lustre. 'Ah! you just say that,' he answered. 'By the way, Belinda, why on earth do you stick so many pins in the front of your dress ?' said he, after a pause, ' you will certainly be impaled on one of them some day, if you don't look out.' »I must have them by me, to settle my work ; I am always wanting pins.' ' But you needn't make a pin-cushion of yourself in this way. I really can't allow it, it is quite dangerous to have such a prickly breastplate. Now, let me take out these pins ; don't be afraid, I am positively doing you a service. One, two, three, four, five, six .'—six pins, I declare,' laying them on the counter. ' They are all out now ; you will give me one, Belinda, won't you? this surly, big headed fellow; and then when I look at it, I will remember my charming little Methodist. 'Oh! sir.'

' There you are with your ' sir ' again. I declare I will punish you if you say it any more.'

' How will you punish me ?' asked Belinda, astonished at her own boldness. ' How will I punish you ? I will make such an astonishing row on that violin of mine, that you will have to out and run down the street—a cat's concert will be nothing to it.'

' Ah! you could not do that, you could nevei make anything but music; ' and Belinda'coloured]to the tips of her ears, after she had spoken. * Upon my word, Belinda, you said that very prettily. A very neat compliment you have paid me ; I wish all my critics would think the same; I will give you a tune for that this evening, better than anything you have heard before. Surely you have not finished yet, have you ?' ' I am just fastening off.' 'Don't be in a hurry, there is no need for haste.'

But Belinda, in the press of so many emotions which came crowding upon her, was trembling like an apple-blossom, and the unruly needle slipped from her grasp, and pricked her finger sharply. ' There !' cried Mr Vansittart, 'in your hurry to get rid of me, you have hurt yourself.'

Such an accusation, so contrary to what was passing in Belinda's thoughts, made her lift her grave, soft blue eyes, and some tide of what was surging underneath would well up, and mirror itself in their clear depths. ' Let me look at this poor injured member,' said Mr Vansittart, taking her unresisting hand, ' why it is positively bleeding —poor little finger ! this is quite too bad. Come, no one can say that a young lady has not shed blood in my service. What can we do for you, Belinda ? Do you know the cure that children have for a scratched finger ? it is said to be a sovereign one, have you ever heard of it ?' 'No, sir.'

'lt is this.' As Mr Vansittart spoke, he lifted Belinda's wounded finger, and touched it softly with his lips, half smiling as he did so. Just then there a sudden noise ; the telegraph-boy was going out with his brown envelopes, and Mr Vansittart, taking up his hat, nodded to Belinda, and went off abruptly, shutting the shop door behind him.

I don't know whether a history of kisses has ever been written; if not, it affords a subject for much curious analysis, The

ardent kiss, the burning kiss, the polite kiss, the chilling kiss, the indifferent kiss, the contemptuous kiss, are not all these the same in kind, and yet with such a prodigious difference in degree, and do they not supply ample food for a volume ? A kiss may mean so much and yet so little, it lasts but a second, and yet how many hours are spent pondering over it, and extracting its honey or its sting ! So with Belinda ! After Mr Vansittart left the shop she remained, her idle scissors and thimble by her side, lost in reverie. If—and if—and if —and why not? What sudden gushes of joy—what throbs of half-defined ecstacy came swelling over her almost submerged spirit ! Her little body seemed all too small t > hold the great things that were pouring into it; as for her scratched finger, she thought it would be well to wrap it in wadding for the rest of the evening ; after what had happened to it, was it not too sacred and precious to meet the garish light of day and the harsh touch of common things? (Mind, I never said that Belinda was not a fool),

When Mar Mason came in, Belinda at once perceived that the class meeting had been unusually improving; she perceived it by an extra pinch about Mrs Mason's nose, and a drag about her left eyelid. What with meditation and millinery, Mrs Mason was too much occupied all the evening to take much notice of her daughter, and Belinda, sitting in the window, greedily drank in those clear violin notes which flitted across the street, and, as she listened, she interpreted them hy a dictionary of her own, nursing her hand tenderly all the time. _ But when they were shutting up for the night, something strangely rosy and rapturous in Belinda's face struck Mrs Mason, and she turned about and said, ' Belinda, have you read your evening portion ?' 'Yes, mother.' ' Have you studied your 'Night Watches?', 'Yes, mother.' ' Beware, Belinda, of turning back to the flesh-pots of Egypt. Mr Pinfold was impressing that upon the young people to-day. I am sorry you did not hear him. After all, what are we but worms ? Why should we take pleasure in clods of clay ? ' This world is but a fleeting show, as the hymn truly says. When we think—poor weak creatures that we are ! —that we have found something which satisfies us, it turns to dust and ashes in our mouths. Broken cisterns ! everything here below is but broken cisterns. I have told you this before, Belinda, but you can't hear it too often. 'No, mother.' ' I hope you lay it to heart. But youth is a deceitful and a deceiving time ;' and Mrs Mason sighed a heavy sigh. Belinda only clasped her new joy closer and closer to her heart—how warm and soft it was ! —and the house was soon as still as night and sleep could make it. (To he continued.')