LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VI, Issue 637, 4 July 1876, Page 3

LITERATURE.

AN OLD LOVE STORY.

Past 111.

(Continued.)

I could not after this settle down in any way, and I felt that the crisis of my fate had come. Therefore, when next I met Joy, I told her that now the sober colour of the world had changed, and that everything I looked upon seemed different to my eyes, because of the new light that was everywhere. The songs of the birds and the soughing winds whispered the o'ercome, 'Joy, Joy.' Joy made the acknowledgment, but always timidly and with a sinking heart, for I knew afterwards how greatly she feared that her uncle the squire would not approve. However, I presented myself one morning at the hall, having first consulted Willy concerning the step I was about to take. The squire received me very kindly, and reproached me for my negligence in not calling upon him long before: but when I, without parley, opened upon him on the subject of my calling, then the genial lines of hia face seemed suddenly to become rigid, and his pleasant smile vanished like a sunbeam in the angry blast. He rose from his chair and stared at me, and I rose from mine, feeling that I could talk better standing. He rang the bell, and ordered the servant to request Joy and Willy to come to him. Joy came in leaning on her soldier's arm, looking sadly at me with tearful eyes. She sank down in a bigj easy chair, and Willy stood by her side, giving me a kind look and cheerful good day. Then the squire commenced to talk; but for the first few minutes he might as well have talked to a horse, for although I heard the words plainly enough, their sense was lost, for my faculties and understanding were prostrate in the presence of my ardored. 1 rallied somewhat at the words ' presumption and ingratitude;' and at that point I listened to the old gentleman, still looking at Joy, who signalled me to be good and calm: and I declared to myself that for her sake and Willy's I' would say nothing to Squire Harding that was not respectful. Ingratitude! Full well I might have asked him for what I was ungrateful; as I never had had or desired anything from him, until now that I wanted for myself his greatest treasure. Ue at last talked himself out of all self-command, and said he, ' Have you nothing to say in defence of your unmanly conduct, Edward Thane ?' I said, ' No ; only this,' sir—that it is true I love Joy, and she loves me; and I wish to marry her at once, if she will take me for her husband, and if you please.' Joy uttered a faint cry of alarm ; and the squire was so thunder struck, that instead of grasping my hand, as he might have done, he sat down and glared at me, becoming quite pale. He cut me short with a violent exclamation before I had well finished what I had to say. Joy cried out piteously to him, and crept down at his feet, clasping her hands around his knees. 'lndeed, indeed, it is true,' she said; * Edward could not speak a he;' and then she hid her sweet face in her hands, still kneeling at his feet. 'Girl, you are a perfect little fool,' he said in great anger. Joy sprang to her feet, and I was at her side in a twinkling, and she put her hand in mine.

' Squire Harding,' I said, ' Joy has chosen her choice, and before Heaven I swear that her choice shall be her happiness from now to the grave, and beyond that who knows ? Not for all the squires in England will I give her up; neither will I leave her here, even in your own house, till she herself gives me the word of command.' Joy, before I had quite done with my speech, placed one dimpled hand on my lips, so that the latter part of the longest speech I ever made was sweetly smothered thereby. The squire rose from his seat and pointed to the door, laying his hand at the same time on the bell rope. His face was whitebleached with anger, but my temper rose not a peg-hole. I stood still until Joy whispered me to go, and whispered another word or two also which made my ear tingle to hear. Willy also came between the squire and me, and laid his hand kindly on my arm, and so between them they drew me away from the room, I fain would have held Joy a moment by herself outside of the room door, but she escaped from me for that time.

I walked home ill at ease; but as I went, my mind seemed to take in other and higher thoughts, and there grew within me the great assurance of my requited love—mine and Joy's, now for ever one, in spite of all the small world of those, who might disapprove, and of those who should cry shame upon my aspiring mind, I could not go home to the mill for- long that night. Again I walked under the stars of the open heaven as onoe before I did, in cruel distress of mind.

The very next morning after my appearance at the hall, as I was impatiently waiting for some sign from Willy, two letters were put into my hand. One was from Willy, and the other from the squire. Mr Harding's letter was cold and formal, but polite. He oommenced with an expression of regret for his hasty reception of me the day before; but he went on to say that a marriage with Joy was quite impossible, such was the. difference in our worldly atations. He advised me, as a young man in whom he had confidence, and for whom he had regard, to put aside such ill-regu-lated ideas, and apply myself to my business. Joy, he said, would at once leave the neighbourhood on a long visit to her mother's relations in the south, so that any further attempt to hold communication with her would be useless.

It seemed, when I read this, as if a thrust of steel had reached my heart. ' Oh, cruel, cruel he is,' I moaned, ' to part us !' I felt for a time quite unmanned, and as though a whole cold, selfish world had come between Joy and me. A hard, mocking, scheming, money loving world, against _ which I felt my own powerlessness in a dull sort of way, that, as I said, quite for a while bore me down, I seated myself in a corner of the mill, where the men were working, with the buzz of the machinery all about me, and I tried to think ; for if thought came to me anywhere, it was in the mill. After a while I bethought me of Willy's unopened letter, which I still held in my hand, and as I read it, a faint ray of hope came to me, for he told me he was still my true friend, and that, if I could have patience, he would serve me well in this

milter, \I did you grate injl be wrtffc ,' and I will do no len now ; ljfejct tut beg of you to do nnl rash.' Bjfyromifced to see me soon, bat for the present time the squi re kept always about him. Joy, he said, did net dare to leave the hcuse, and was forbidden to see me. But she sent a few precious words in Willj's latter that comforted me much. \ \ I could scarcely restrain myself from rising in rebellion against \the injustice of the squire. But I knew \ coald do nothing except range about all'liaV— aiyl very nearly all night too—in walks; and that same night, Rice HJtwton the gamekeeper, and Wallace his d eo far as to grapple with me in the. trees, thinking I was a [ To be contxnued^S^^