LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 904, 18 May 1877, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE CHARM,

‘ Teresita ! ah, Teresita! ’ sang young Jermyn, as Therese Van Dest came into the room.

She tossed her head at him and then m n dc a delicious little curtsey for his benefit. ‘ Come, Therese; come and finish this trimming : you know I shall be waiting for it.’

The speaker was the elder "sister, Louise, She spoke rather sharply, wishing William Jermyn anywhere else, hindrance that he was to all useful occupation. Therese, thus admonished, came humming to her work as a bee to a flower ; and in another moment was deep in the mysteries of ruffle and fringe. * I am to have the corsage heart-shaped, you know, Louise ; and the sleeves are to be trimmed in the shape of a Maltese cross —so, fashioning the muslin she held to suit her words and to indicate her ideas to Miss Van Dest.

‘ What do you know of Maltese crosses ?’ asked Jermyn, drawing nearer with quizzical interest. ‘Do you call that a Maltese cross, Teresita ?’ and his mischievous hand, touching, scattered at once her fashioned muslin. Therese left the print of three little teeth upon the said mischievous hand; wherea’ the young man cried out in simulated pain. In the next moment he was pressing his lips where her’s had been.

‘ A kiss for a blow, you know, Teresita ! and he glanced at her a swift, dangerous glance, over Louise’s intervening head. 4 William Jermyn !’ and Louise turned severely towards him, missing Teresita’s blush, which Jermyn would not have missed for the world, ‘ William Jermyn, go away,

T beg of yon, until Thcrcse can finish what she has to do. You are like two children, both of you; idling when you should be at your work. ’

‘ Don’t talk of work, Madame Louise, I entreat; it’s a disagreeable subject.’ He laughed good-humouredly. Louise was so staid, several years older than therese, that he sometimes called her ‘ Madame.’

‘ How do you suppose you can get on, William Jermyn ?’ she asked. * Wasting your time here when you ought to be poring over your law books?’ ‘I have been poring over them all Die morning, and I came here, done to death, for a little life giving recreation.’ ‘But you must not hinder us,’returned Louise, gravely, ‘lf Therese is to go to this party to-night her dress must be finished. You know we can no longer afford to pay a dressmaker. ’

The words brought Mr Jermyn to his senses. He was sobered at once

‘Louise, I beg your pardon. I am a thoughtless fellow, but you shall see I will he'p the work I have hindered. Now wait; I’ll show you a design worth two of that, Teresita Maltese crosses indeed ! See this fancy, which all the Spanish girls drape their beautiful arms with on great days;’ and Jermyn, who had employed bis artist’s eye to advantage in his foreign wanderings, sketched out on the envelope of a letter a * fancy’ that drew forth even that cool, grave, worried Louise’s admiration, and over which Therese was enthusiastic. And after this, while Therese sewed, he sat and watchd her, making some quiet remark now and then, which went unreproved by Louise. She was a pretty thing to look at, was Teresita; as he would persist in calling her, after Garibaldi’s lovely daughter, in Mrs Browning’s poem; a pretty thing to look at, with her sweet eyes, her flickering colour, her graceful motions. And that day she was clad quaintly in a curious dress of black serge, with a deep frill of yellowish old lace at the throat, from which arose the stately little head, ‘ sunning over with curls’ of a deep chestnut brown. It was a dress for economy, Louise would have told you; yet, for all that, it looked like au artists fashioning, and gave the otherwise gay brightness of the wearer a nun-like appearance, which was further carried out by the odd chain, or necklace, of dark carved beads which hung down like a rosary.

Mr Jermyn, scanning her all over, began to think that he disapproved of this chain ; it looked dark and heavy. ‘ Teresita, I cannot think why you wear that chain round your neck so often !’ * She wears it constantly/ exclaimed Louise, a little reproachfully. For she did not much like the chain Uerself.

Therese flushed ; but answered in quick defiance to them both.

‘ I wear it because my grandmother told me to. Poor Aunt Joan wore it till she died and then grandmamma locked it up ; and one day she got it out and fput it on my neck, and told me to wear it. And I am sure, William Jermyn, you know all this. Or you ought to know it.’ ‘ And how should William Jermyn know it ?’ put in Louise. ‘ Has he no' been always away of late years ? - and what has he to do with the Freer part of the family ? He belongs to the Nan Dests, and is only our third or fourth cousin, child. But it was always a trait of the Van Dests to hold to its least link as if it were the nearest. ’

‘I am glad of it,’ exclaimed Teresita, with vigorous vehemence, so that both her auditors looked at her in surprise. But the moment the words escaped her, her face was in a dazzle of smiles and blushes. What was it she was glad of? —that he was only the r their or fourth cousin? Louise felt no doubt upon the point; for she believed Thercse disliked the young man. But Mr Jermyn put upon it a different interpretation az he met those dazzling eyes with a glance of triumph; he remembered a little girl who had once eat upon his knee when he was a boy of fifteen, and had lifted just those eyes to Ids, and in just that ringing voice had exclaimed, in a tone of decision— ‘ lam glad you are not my first cousin, William Jermyn, because grandmama says that first cousins may not marry; and I mean to marry you when 3 r ou are a big man, and I am a big girl. ’ The boy was a big man now and the child had grown into a young woman; quite different from the pretty little elfing who had sat upon his knee. And he had forgotten a good deal about her, and, with the rest, her promise, until the charm of her maturer presence set him searching for every past remembrance. And here was a remembrance worth recalling, and suddenly he sees the child face and hears the childish speech of ten years gone by, as aga n the same eyes, with deeper dewiness, the same speech, with sweeter syllables, repeats the same old words. And was he right:’ —was it that she was glad now for the same reason that she professed to be ten years ago, or was it for the Van Best tradition of tenacity? Both were possible; how could he determine which was in her mind? When his college career had terminated, he went to study in Germany. And since he had come back, and entered into the profession that he meant to make his own, he had never been quite aide to determine what was in Teresita’s mind; rever had been quite able to tell how much was child, how much was woman; how much was play, how much was earnest, through all the variations of her manner. Sometime she seemed so frank he thought there was nothing left in her for him to discover; at the next meeting, a mock elf battled him. And again it was a serious, pensive woman, almost a nun; and anon a simple child. She looked something like the nun now, as she, her work dropped, touched the brown beads with a caressing hand. All in a moment, the thread broke—perhaps it had been worn too long, and the beads fell in her lap. ‘ There !’ she cried. Aud, pulling at the string, there came out from the folds of her gown a curious appendage. It was a dark oblong object, banded here and there with glistening steel, and it fell on the carpet. Mr Jermyn picked it up, and looked at it curiously. ‘Take care of that,’ cried Louise, with a slighting laugh. ‘ Therese looks upon it as a charm; it is for that she wears the necklace.’

‘ Why,’ said the young man, * it is nothing in the world but one of those nuts that Uncle Michael used to bring home from his voyages to India. It is darkened by age, and further disguised by this queer flummery round about it. Fie, Teresita, it is an Indian fetish you have been wearing all this time !’ And the young man laughed provokingly, f To be continued,']