LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 879, 19 April 1877, Page 3

LITERATURE.

A WINTER’S TALE. By E, E. Mulley. “Wonder on till truth makes all things plain.” Midsummer Night's Dream, act v. sc. i. ( Continued ) Phemie waits to see him hang his hat on a peg in the h 'll, and then flies to her own room to take off her wet things. She jumps out of one dress mto another so quickly that she is downstairs again, dressed in all her best, looking as dry and neat and na*ty as if she had not been out in the rain for a week, by the time that Mr Kennicote makes his appearance in the dining-room with the colonel’s dress boots on. ‘ Phemie, let me introduce Mr Kennicote to you ; he is the nephew of a brother officer of mine long ago, when I was in the Rifles. Mr Kennicote, Miss Seaton,’ Colonel Hursley says, with the air of one announcing that the acquaintance began from that moment, ignoring the fact that these two have met before. They bow to each other with mock gravity, |and then sit down to luncheon, during which meal Christopher Kennicote wins golden opinions from Calonel Hursley by the deference with which he listens to his (the colonel’s) views on all subjects, only differing from him sufficiently to give a spice to the discussion. The old officer is de lighted with ‘ Diok Kennicote’s nephew and the young man makes hay while the sun shines indoors, despite the rain out of doors. He talks to his host and watches the niece, furtively thinking how pretty and unaffected she is in both looks and manner. When he met her on the cliffs, and offered her his assistance, he had been charmed by the simple unembarrassed way she had accepted it She had made no demur, as any girl less entirely free from self-consciousness would have done. She was too unversed in the world’s ways for the lack of introduction to make her hesitate in the fear lest this offer might be merely a pretext for making the acquaintance of a pretty girl, and too innately wejl bred to look on the adventure as one out of which she might get a flirtation. Seeing all this, he is well pleased that Fate, in the person of his uncle’s old friend, should have ordained that they are to become better acquainted. Luncheon finished, they all sit round the fire, apd sqon grow chatty and confidential, quite like old friends. Py the time Christopher Kennicote rises to go, the early winter twilight has long drawn in, and it is quite dark. ‘ You will have a nasty walk to the hotel, in the rain ; but the wind will be at your back, going in that direction,’ Colonel Hursley says, bidding his visitor good-bye. ‘ It is an ill wind that blows no one any good, and I qan’t pomplain of the harbour it droye me into this morning,’ says Mr Kennicote. Then he starts on his way, up the hill this time, and as he walks briskly along the vision of agirlishfairyoung face, with frankblueeyes that meet his own without a shadow of coquetry in them, comes before him in the darkness. In the silence a clear sweet voice speaking fo Ifim stiff, talking, not very learnedly perhaps, but a good deal of girlish nonsense, which is yet free from any tendency towards fastness or flippancy ; and when Christopher Kennicote turns in at the door of his hotel he knows that he has fallen in love with Colonel Hursley’s niece, and he resolves that he will not attempt to faff qqt again. Being still so nifnded, the next day he found his ayay to Sea View Terrace as early ip the morning as he felt he could without unduly intruding. He was received cordially by both uncle and niece, who, already dressed to go out, invited him to accompany them, and he accepted the invitation gratefully. The wind and rain of tbe previous day had given placp t° sunshine and a soft westerly breeze that came pleasantly against thejr faqes as they went up the hill to the ofiffs, towards the scene of yesterday’s disaster. ‘We must look for my umbrella,’ said Miss Seaton. ‘ I wonder what has become of the poor thing ? ’ ‘Perhaps a mermaid has picked it up,’ Mr Kennicote suggested. ‘ She wopkf find it useful under the sea tq keep the water off, wouldn’t she ? ’ said the girl merrily. And so laughing, talking now jestingly, now seriously, of all things under the snn, they passed the morning and many, following mornings, afternoons, apd evenings. During the ne*t fortnight there was some Ay an hour in the day when Christopher Kennicate was not with his new friends. No excuse was too trivial to afford a reason for going where he might stay blissfully in Phemie Seaton’s presence. Colony! Hursley looked on complacently; qld bachelor though he was, by could read the signs of tbe times,, apd was, more than willing that Kyunicofe and the child should make a match of it, The child, as he called her, was the only one unconscious of what was passing before her very eyes. She had yet to learn the part that she was now playing in the little dram& of her life. She just knew she xyaa. very happy, and that the days slipped away very pleasantly ; hut it djd not occur to her to draw comparisons between the present and the and call herself happier than she had ever been before, and speculate on the reasons ; this knowledge was to come later. Now she was perfectly content to go op meeting Christopher Kennicote day after day, on precisely the same footing of friendly intimacy; and he, syelng bow utterly innocent she was qf any idea of love making, found, blmssif progressing but slowly with his wooing If he made her pretty flattering speeches she only laughed at him. When, in his despair of making her understand how completely he had lost his heart, he grew sentimental, Phemie would look at him with an inquisitive surprise in her b,lp9 eyes that fairly puzzled him. ‘ Was there ever such a girl before—a woman why, positively did not know when shy, was being made love to ?’ he would ask himself, in amazement. It was a new experience to him, and the novelty was not witbout its charm ; it also had no time tq wear off, for a fortnight after their meeting was the limit of both bis o\vn stay at Caercombe and of here. December was nearly out, and Christmas within a couple of days, when their last day together came. The next four-and-twenty hours would find them all scattered. By that time Colonel Hursley would bo on board the troop ship Niger, leaving England to rejoin his regiment in India, after six months’ leave. {To he continued.)

Christopher Kennicote would be at home in Leicestershire, where his own people had been expecting his return for the last ten days, wondering what could detain him so long daring the hunting season, for he had decided on keeping his own counsel until he alien'd have something definite to say. Phemie Peaton’s destination was an oldfashioned manor house on the border-land between North Devon and Cornwall, some miles distant from all neighbours, and in winter separated from them by what the country people forcibly term ‘ gashly’ roads, where she had hitherto led an uneventful contented life, mostly alone with old Jenifer the housekeeper; for the squire, her father, took but little notice of his daughter, never having quite forgiven her for being a girl, when a son would have been so much more to his taste. Mrs Seaton, Colonel Hursley’s sister, had shared his disappointment fully, and died of it, rather glad to get away from a world in which she had made two great mistakes, the greater of which had been hor marriage with the squire, for the husband and wife, utterly unsuited to each other, had led a most unhappy life; and Mr Seaton, left a widower, never entertained any idea of marrying again, but resigned himself to the fate that should one day give Koscorla into the hands of his little, fair-haired daughter, between whom and himself there was small sympathy. Not that he was actually, or even negatively unkind to Phemie ; it was merely the result of circumstances that their lives, lived under the same roof, lay so far apart. The squire was devoted to out-door sports of all kinds ; these necessarily k°pt him much away from home during the day; indeed Phemie rarely saw him between an early breakfast and a late dinner, at which, until recently, she had not been thought old enough to appear. But for the last year they had dined together, and Phemie, who took little interest in the shooting or the runs across country with the Trelaby hounds, or in the prospects of the crops, which formed the chief topic of her father’s conversation, dreaded the return to those dinners and to those nightly efforts to make herself companionable to him, oppressed by the humiliating sense that her failure was to be attributed to the fact of her being only a girl. Ip Colonel Hursley’a eyes this was not euqh a drawback, and Phemie, knowing this, was thoroughly at her ease with him, would talk to him without that feeling of restraint which kept her silent at home. It was just four months since, seeing what a dull life the girl led at Roscorla, he took her away with him, * to show her the world,’ he said, by which he meant Loudon, Edinburgh, and Paris. B[e did his best to spoil her, petting and making much of her, and Phemie took it all thankfully, it was something so new, so delightful, to be coaxed and cosseted by any one but old Jenifer ; and in this last week at Caercombe, Phemie’s heart began to fail her at the thought of going back to the old life, and at the knowledge which forces itself upon us all, sooner or later, that nothing qa Q Lat for ever, though it is only of happiness that it is said; Sorrow clogs Time’s footsteps sadly, and lingers an un welcome guest. It is these last days of one’s life that go at such a desperate speed, hurrying away from us some one or thing to which we cling, loth to let it go even for a while out of eight. It was so with Phemie Seaton now. A last day had qome for her, a very borrowed summer day at Christmas time, and she went down to breakfast with a most woe-begone face. What was the good of the sunshine when everybody was going away to-morrow ? and when Christopher Kennicote looked in at Sea View Terrace, as his daily custom was, he found her sitting near the window listless and discontented. She brightened up a little at the sight of him, and then grew dismal once again over the thought that he would not be able to come any more Colonel Hursley glanced from his visitor to his niece. ‘ Take her out for a little fresh air,’ he said to the one, and ‘Go and put on your bonnet, my dear,’ to the other. His orders being obeyed, the two young people soon found themselves sauntering along the cliffs towards the place of their first meeting. It was a little promontory jutting out into the sea beyond the rest of the coastline. Soft green turf grew under foot, that was pleasant to walk upon; below lay the sqa, blue as the sky overhead, but not a (Summer sea lying lazily and unruffled in its unbroken calm. To-day little waves broke everywhere into white feathery crests, and kept it in perpetual motion. For a minute or two Phemie watebed it ; then, with an impatient sigh, she sat herself down on a stone with her back to it. * Why do you do that ?’ asked Mr Kenniqotq ; < yon won’t have the chance of looking at the sea to-morrow.’ ‘ Indeed I shall ?’ she said ; ‘ every day of my life I see it from my window at home, and it is just because I don’t want to be reminded of going that I turn away.’ * That is an easy way of forgetting ; so I suppose when }ou have lost sight of Caercombe you, will forget all about me ?’ said Christopher Kennicote. r To he rontrnned. j