LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 831, 21 February 1877, Page 3

LITERATURE.

ONCE, AND A LIFETIME. ( Continued.) ‘ Sometimes ; generally it is rather dis agreeable. If Mr Leighton, for instance, were to speak out his opinion of me, I am sure it would not be agreeable.’ ‘ May I speak, Miss Gascoigne ? ’ ‘Yes, but not before any one else. Walk back to the house with me, and I will willingly listen to you.’ ‘ We had better defer it,’ Leighton cried quickly, seeing her drift, and loth to give up the society he had been enjoying for anything so hackneyed as a flirtation with a woman of the heaviest calibre. ‘ The opinion is so severe that you are fearful of hurting me. ’ ‘ There is but one way of answering that.’

‘By letting me know my fate at once. May I take your arm ? Oswald and Miss Clive will understand how great my curiosity is.’ Thus unceremoniously left behind, Agnes felt amused, and Oswald was only half as indignant as he should have been. He could not hide from himself the fact that his cousin was a thousand times prettier and more bewitching than his fiancee. So he lovingly clasped her hand and drew it through his arm, and lingered so much among the scented bouquets, looking down at the white face so near his shoulder with longing eyes, that the moon was sailing majestically through the tickly spangled sky by the time they reached the house. Miss Gascoigne was warbling in a birdlike voice as they went in, her large limpid blue orbs lifted up towards Howard Leighton, and the brilliancy of her cheeks heightened to a deep rose tint. ‘ How pretty she is 1 ’ remarked with sincerity to Oswald. ‘ £es,’ was the indifferent answer. ‘But I do not like flirts, and Adelaide is a desperate one.’

‘I fancy it’s a case of Greek meeting Greek with Miss Gascoigne and Mr Leighton.’ * Oh, he is a professional lady-killer; you must be careful how you treat him, my little cousin. I could not bear him to to say that he had ever flirted with you.’ ‘ There is not much chance of his saying it,’ she replied frigidly. * Miss Gascoigne is calling you. You had better go.’ Miss Gascoigne had perceived the long absence of her vassal, and desired to recall him at once to a due sense of the allegiance he owed her.

‘ Poor Oswald is in the sulks, and will not come near me,’ she observed confidentially to Leighton; ‘I must call him, I suppose,’ she added, in a martyr-like tone. Oswald sauntered up to her with neither jealousy nor deprecation in his face. ‘ Where have you been all this time ? Miss Clive is charming, and moonlight and flirtation very nice; but, under the circumstances, it is not correct,’ she said, with a delicious little moue motion, which, however, failed to fascinate her betrothed, as he protested warmly against the word ‘ flirtation’ being applied to Agnes and himself : they were like brother and sister, and had been fond of one another for years. ‘ I have no faith in the safety of cousinly affection,’ Miss Gascoigne asserted with a sapient air. ‘ I had a cousin once, an adorable fellow; and the fact of having known him all my life did not lessen my regard for him,’ she avowed honestly. ‘Yes; but you are different from Agnes. She is intrinsically cold and correct, ’ Oswald asserted heartily, silencing his lady love by his trite remark.

Meanwhile Agnes was searching for Bert, whom she found at|lastjhidden away in the embrasure of a window in the second drawing room. He was lying on an easy chair in the dim light. ‘ How dull you look, Bert, in this corner!’

‘ Dull ! Could Ibe dull when I have such a grand opportunity for studying human nature—that is, female human nature ?’ he asked her, in his queer abrupt way. ‘ I have been watching la belle Adelaide there,’ he went on, ‘ and wondering how long she will succeed iu keeping both Oswald and Leighton well in hand. ’ ‘As long as she pleases. I fancy both are glad enough to dance attendance on her.’ ‘ Humph 1 I have my own ideas on that score,’ he responded, with a curl of his lip. In less than live minutes they saw Leighton desert his post at the piano, and walk straight towards them. ‘ How delightfully quiet and cool it is here ! May 1 share your retreat ?' he said to Bert.

‘We are Arabians in hospitality,’jßert replied, with one of hia rare and pleasant smiles; and lie whispered to Agnes, ‘ How long will he be permitted to run ?’ This question was speedily settled. One swift glance from under Miss Gascoigne’s long golden lashes had taken in the state of affairs. A recall was sounded without delay. ‘ Where have you vanished to, Mr Leighton ? lam going to sing your song for you, so you must come and listen.’ So Howard Leighton reluctantly went to the piano and listened to his song being sung, with glances that ought to have melted him; but he was a stoic, and remained unmoved.

‘ What do you think of your future sister-in-law, Bert ?’ Agnes asked, while the little sentimental drama was being enacted.

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘ Agnes,’ he whispered, ‘do you recollect that ditty we found iu an old book one day ? ‘ “ He said, I kept him off, mother, in hopes of higher game; And it may be that I did, mother; but who hasn’t done the same?” ’

‘ Uon’tbecynical, Bert; she means nothing?’ ‘ She means nothing a good deal; but she will overreach herself, like a good many cunning folk do,’ he answered pettishly. As the time wore on, Miss Gascoigne and Agnes looked at each other as though across a gulf that no single feeling in unison can span. Roth were young and pretty; but the only sentiment they had in common was one of antagonism—Agues iu a slight degree, but Miss Gascoigne in a very marked one. There are natures which, having given love, are wholly unable to recall it. ‘ Once, and a lifetime’—it was this kind of love that Agnes felt. Her heart had been yielded to a man who held it lightly in his hand until he wearied of it, and flung it down in the dust from which none could lift it again. Bert alone understood this, and ho gnashed his teeth in vexation that the indomitable constancy which was Agnes’s chief quality should he, turned against herself. Ho would have been wretched on parting from her; yet he would willingly give her up toLeighton,

■ 1 - —■■ 1 whom he had grown to like, and whom he considered worthy of her. It was bitterness to know this which might have been could never be for the sake of a frivolous empty heart such as Oswald’s. It was small consolation to mark that, however constant Miss Gascoigne’s efforts to attract Leighton, they signally failed. He laughed and amused himself, and let the whole battery of fascination play harmlessly on his coat of mail. Pakt 111. Oswald meanwhile, urged on by the example of his friend, found his fickle fancy drawing him nearer and nearer to Agnes. Her face had taken him by storm when first he saw her standing amid the roses in the sunlit garden. He had, however, only looked upon her as the sweetheart of other days; now he had begun to see her with Howard Leighton’s love, save that, while Leighton’s love was gold, Oswald’s love was dross. If Agnes had given one sign, he was ready to forget Adelaide Gascoigne and the honor that bound him to her; but Agnes, pale, cold, and silent, gave no sign, and her very reserve fanned the flame in Oswald’s heart to a fiercer one.

‘ What a splendid night for a sail on the river!’ suggested Leighton suddenly. He had been vainly trying to get a word with Agnes, and the longing to be alone with her for even a little while had grown intense. ‘ Delicious 1’ cried Miss Gascoigne. ‘We can go—cannot we, Oswald ?’

‘ I see no objection. ' order, Agnes, is it not ?’

The boat is in good

‘lt was in good order just before you came, I believe.

‘There are two boats, Miss Clive, are there not?’ questioned Leighton, his voice trembling with anxiety to secure her to himself.

‘Yes,’ said Oswald; ‘I will take my cousin, as I believe Adelaide has some London news to give you. Agnes, come!’ She assented a little unwillingly, but yet she could not bring herself to refuse him. They walked on, and the others did not overtake them.

Oswald sprang into the boat and pushed it close to the shore; then he turned, and held out his hand to assist his companion in. The great broad river, with the moon'ight silvering its current, flowed quietly by; the drooping foliage that fringed its banks looked dark and mysterious. The little craft rocked on the water as Oswald bent forwards : but still the girl hesitated, and in her heart wished to go back home.

(To be continued.)