LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VII, Issue 769, 7 December 1876, Page 3

LITERATURE.

HOW IT HAPPENED. ( Continued .) ‘ Oh, I have not found the likeness !’ I cried, ‘I have only hit upon an idea. I feel certain now that Louis Carter took the photograph while he was here alone in the room. I am delighted, too, to know this. It clears up all my perplexity. It shows me that Frances is the one he cares for. I mui tell her about the loss, and make her under stand who has been the thief.’ ‘ You will do nothing of the kind, I hope,’ my husband said. ‘Your conjectures may be correct, but they may also be wrong. I think the only right course is to keep silence for the present, and in the meantime to go off and order a new copy from the photographer. ’ This was what I eventually did, and I was very soon extremely thankful that I had followed this advice.

The next Saturday happened to be St. Valentine’s day. The girls came to me, as usual; but Frances was coughing, and seem ;d ill. She was perfectly pale, and her eyes looked larger than usual, and there were dark lines drawn underneath her lower lids. She laughed and talked, however, with forced and feverish gaiety quite unnatural to her. Both maidens were laden with valentines, and Fenella was merry with a right good will, although I saw her occasionally stealing a pitying glance at her sister.

I recognised the handwriting upon many of the envelopes shown to me. The Redchester Collegians had been particularly amorously inclined this year. The younger girl had received no less than seventeen triumphs of art, while Prances displayed twelve tokens of admiration.

‘ls that all?’ I asked, at last, when I had my lap full of Cupids, doves, and roses.

‘ There is one more,’ Fenella said gleefully, and yet with a certain hesitation of manner ; ‘ but it is of quite a different sort from these. It is a real one. Don’t you think so, Frances ?’

The poor child had been bending over the fire. She shivered as she attempted to smile when thus addressed. I saw her blue eyes fill with tears, as she answered, in a husky A r oiue : ‘I don’t know—Yes—l suppose it is.’ Her liveliness had failed her all of a sudden, and I wondered what could be the matter.

Fenella, meanwhile, had drawn her last treasure forth, and now held it before me. This valentine consisted of a large unornamented sheet of white paper, containing a bold sketch of the sea-shore and of the great heaving ocean. Underneath was written .

“ So vast my love ! My bliss as boundless, If thou wilt be mine.—L.C.” The envelope was directed to Miss F. Perrin* and there had been no attempt made to disguise the handwriting. The sender was certainly our organist, and he wished that fact to be known. I pushed all the gaudy missives aside in disgust, and sat silent for a while. Fenella was quite keen enough to see what was in my mind, but she passed no remark. Frances was so engrossed in trying to appear indifferent that she observed nothing. I got up and brought her the likeness I had just received from the photographer, saying aloud that I had determined to keep the profile likeness ; while all the time I was mentally repeating, over and over again, ‘He did not take it, then, and I have been deceived. ”

As Francis had a cold, I proposed that we should not go to the choir practice that evening. Fenella remonstrated against this idea with eager indignation, and the elder girl yielded at once, and consented to gc, as if the matter were quite indifferent to her, although she had confessed to feeling weary and unequal to further effort, Fenella vexed and provoked me all that day. And yet I was unreasonable, no doubt, in expecting her to act otherwise than as she did, considering the circumstances of the case, and her nature. She feigned extreme fatigue when we left the church, until she almost obliged Mr Carter to offer her his arm. He only went with us half way to the Academy, however. He turned away then, pleading urgent business as an excuse for leaving us ; and after that how Fenella did chatter !

‘ He asked me if there could be any hope for him,’ she said, breaking out into a conscious little laugh ; * and I said, ‘ ‘ Of course notand, would you believe it, the stupid old fellow trembled all over as the words came out ! He is a goose. Instead of shivering and going away like that he ought to have settled the whole matter to-night, upon the spot. ’ Frances and I were walking arm in arm. She too trembled just now, and I, half inadvertently, caught her hand in mine, but she drew quite away from me as I did so. ‘You talk too much of things, Fenella,’ she said with a little gasp. ‘ What is the good of things except to talk of them V was the very characteristic answer given to this remark. Fenella came to me by herself next Saturday. Frances had been laid up ever since that evening with a feverish cold. We did no go to the choir practice. Even had I been inclined to take Fenella by herself, she would not have cared much to go, as Louis Carter was absent on bank business, and had deputed his duties to an assistant. I went back with her in the evening to the school, to see Frances, She was up and downstairs again, but she still looked ill. Her face was ■white and pinched, her hands burned painfully. When I touched her lips they, too, felt unnaturally hot, but she called herself nearly well. ‘ I shall be quite ready to go to you and to tlie choir practice next week, ’ she whis pered, ‘ Fenella tells me I mope, and that this attracts notice, but indeed I don’t wish to do so. I would not interfere with her happiness for the whole world. ’ Charter 111. The boys were unusually tardy about dispersing on the following Saturday. The weather was mild, dull, and spring-like, and they were intending to go off upon some fishing excursion. Their preparations for this were very elaborate and noisy. I grew weary, at last, of hearing them tramping backwards and forwards through the long passage connecting our house with the College, and of listening to loud-voiced dis cussicus about rods, bait, and tackle. 1 opened the great hall-door, and went out upon the steps to get a little peace, The air was delightfully soft and balmy, but the prospect before we was far from en-

livening. A cart laden with dried fish splashed through the muddy street. Two officers, attired in an unbecoming undress, went by, with cigars in their mouths, obliging a market-woman to get off the path to allow them to pass. They had just turned out of sight when one of the bareheaded grey monks appeared, walking with downcast eyes and a quick, silent step. A group of persons came into view almost immediately afterwards. They were Frances, with Louis Carter, followed by Fenella, who had the curate of the parish as her companion. All four looked out of sorts and uncomfortable. I felt instinctively that something disagreeable must have occurred, and I waited anxiously to greet the girls. The two gentlemen turned away in opposite directions when they reached the house, raising their hats to us all. Fenella was at my side in an instant. Her eyes were blazing with angry excitement, and she threw back her head with a haughty, indignant toss and air. Frances stumbled up the steps, and burst into hysterical sobs as she got close to me. ‘ Oh, hush !’ I said, leading her into my husband’s study, that being the only room downstairs in which we could be free from the boys’ intrusion.

‘ How I bate such meanness ! ’ Fenella cried, looking at her sister with anunutterably wrathful gaze. ‘lf you had a lover, I would not try and entice him away from yon, although it might indeed be fair enough lor me to make the attempt, when you are so much prettier than I ’ It was some little time before I could ascertain the meaning of all this, but at last I gathered that the facts of the case ran as follows:

On leaving the Academy the girls had gone for a little walk before turning towards the College. They had met the curate, and Fenella, only too delighted to secure any male companion, had challenged him to escort them to their destination, which he was quite ready to do. Shortly afterwards, however, they fell in also with Louis Carter, who immediately attached himself to Frances, entering into earnest and private conversation with her. The younger girl, who regarded him as her own particular property, was terribly chagrined and provoked at this, and the young clergyman was made to feel himself quite de trop by her. While she was giving me an account of her grie vances, Frances stood at my side, trembling, and shedding showers of tears. She now sobbed out a declaration that, although Mr Carter had said he had bub just left the bank, she felt sure he must have been drinking somewhere. ‘For shame!’ I cried. ‘How can you say such a thing of a man like Louis Carter ? No one ever saw him the worse for drink. How could you possibly even think it of him ? ’ ‘ I have every right, at any rate, to ask what ho was saying to you,’ Fenella interrupted, angrily. ‘ You shall know all about it at once,’ Frances answered, looking up, ‘ When we came to the old bridge he was asking me to marry him. ’ Fenella looked unspeakable things, but her anger choked her voice for the moment. ‘ And you said ? ’ I asked, ‘ What could I say that would have been half hard enough ? I tell you he was not himself. He must have been drinking. He stumbled twice, and nearly fell down ; and his eyes were blazing at me in such a terrible way. I asked him how he dared to say such things to me, after all that has passed, and I told him I would sooner die than marry a man that anyone could say had been mean and dishonourable.’

‘ You said what you had no right to say, ’ I remarked, angrily. ‘1 never met a more provoking pair of girls in my life. ’ ‘He was not sober,’ she insisted passionately. ‘He could not walk steadily. ’ ‘ You stumbled twice as you came up the steps here,’ I said, dryly, * and yet you are quite sober. I don’t consider girls should say such things, or ought even to let themselves think them, of men—especially of good men, like Louis Carter—unless there is no possibility of mistake about the matter. My idea is that there has been some most extraordinary misapprehension in this affair from the very beginning. Perhaps lie thinks that Fenella is the elder, as I thought at first. He may have intended the valentine for you. ’ ‘ Oh !’ exclaimed Fenella, interrupting me indignantly. * Then pray, what can you make of all the things he said to me ?’ of all the times he asked me if there was any hope for him ?’

‘Perhaps he did not understand how jealous you are,’ I answered, coldly. ‘He may have believed that you knew and understood his admiration for Frances. His questions probably referred to her. ’ ‘ You may think what you like,’ was the angry reply, ‘ but from the commencement he paid attentions to me, and to me only, even before he knew Frances. He may have turned off to her now. It is always the way. She set to work to charm him from me, at once, with her beauty, and of course she has succeeded. It is easy for her to have things as she wishes; but he is a mean, wicked, dishonorable man, and I congratulate her upon what she gets in him. But I will have my revenge some day.’ Matters were going too far, and I took pattern by Frances, and began to cry. Fenella was soon in tears also, and then we presently kissed all round, and forgave each other.

The younger girl then said, magnanimously, ‘ You may have him, Frances, if you wish to take such a mean fellow; but I will try and keep far away from you both, for I hate him with my whole heart, and I never can forgive anyone. ’ She spoke half regretfully, but her lips again grew pale with angxy emotion. ‘ You need not distress yourself about the matter,’ Frances answered, quietly. ‘ I could never like anyone who had acted dishonorably. ’ ‘ But he has not, I feel sure,’ I said. ‘lt has been all a mistake.’

‘Ho has only wrecked my happiness for ever,’ Feuella observed, in tragical tones. ‘ I w r ill never, never marry him,’ Frances sobbed, clinging to her aggrieved sister; and I knew she spoke with a resolute and obstinate heart. We discontinued our attendance at the choir practice after this, but otherwise things appeared to go on much as usual. The girls took their music lessons as of old, and it was no doubt good discipline for them to be obliged to act as though nothing had happened. Fenella prospered and grew merry again very speedily* under this self restraint. She was ever ready onco more to avail hex'self of any chance opening for came in her way. Schoolboy,

curate, vicar, or doctor, all were alike acceptable to her, if they were willing to allow her to amuse herself at their expense. Frances was, however, no longer what she had been. Her former calm and even temperament was gone. When she fancied herself unnoticed she drooped languidly, and sat with idle clasped hands, as though weary of her life. At other times she was feverishly active and eager. Her cheeks burned on such occasions, and her hands trembled, I thought her far from well or strong, but she was resolute in declaring that there was nothing the matter with her. Louis Carter, to my great distress, withdrew himself completely from me and my husband. We could only mourn in secret over this estrangement, and over the sad change we perceived in him. He walked heavily, and with stooping shoulders, now, while a cloud of gloomy reserve had settled upon his face. {To he continued.)