LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 915, 31 May 1877, Page 3

LITERATURE.

VIOLET. A Story in Three Chapters. BY AUSTIN LESLIE. Chapter I. Violet Graham stood by the low wall that encircled the garden of the farmhouse of Langloan, and looked with happy eyes to the west, where the sun went down in glorious bars of crimson and gold behind the hills which on that side sun-ound the fairest city of the world. The sight that met her gaze was one over which a painter would have gone wild with enthusiasm, and even in the young girl's heart something very much akin to that feeling made the dark eyes glow with a radience brighter than was their wont. * * * * Gazing as one entranced on the lovely scene, "Violet stood looking with eager eyes where the sun descended lower and lower into the western horizon, until, with a last red glare, like the liadi from some expiring; fire, it faded from sight behind the hills, and the roseate hue that had illumined everything around gave place to the gray stillness of eve.

' Will you meet me at sunset, Letty ?' So her betrothed had asked her, as he passed driving into town in his unassuming gig drawn by the old gray mare that had done good service in its day, but was now getting rather stiff and worn out, yet with which George Linn's father refused to part. It had carried him and his so long that he had got to look on it as belonging to the farm.

With a firm tread and a glad light in his eyes the young man came along the fieldpath to meet his love. Health was in the ruddy hue fo his bronzed face and in the cleat blue eyes that shone so truthfully beneath the open brow round which the fair hair clustered, and his manly form and broad shoulders gave him the look of a modern Hercules.

' You'll be going into the town on Saturday, Letty ? We're to have a holiday, as we're not very busy just now. I'll call for you in the morning ; so m'nd and be ready, dearest.' To which Letty replied by a shy upward glance and a smile that would have conquered the greatest woman-hater in the world.

George took the pretty face between his hands, and gave it kiss for kiss ; and then, with his ai'm round the girl's neck, walked along between the shadows of the sleeping hills, with the tender moonlight shining down upon them, and thought himself the happiest man under the stars.

' Ah, Letty darling, I wish you were all my own 1 How I shall weary until the months go past ! I have been looking after a farm, and my father thinks I have a very good chance of getting it. Only I sometimes think that you're too good for a farmer's wife '

' Ay, George, you think that I've high notions. Why, I'm only a farmer's daughter.' ' Quite true, oarling ; but such a farmer's daughter ! How many farmers' daughter do you think there are in Scotland to compare with you ? Not one, I'll be bound !'

' Come, come, George, you'll make me quite vain. What would you have me to be ? An earl's wife, eh ?'

' Well, I think you're quite worthy of any earl that might marry you. However, I've got you, and I'll see and not let any earl or lord or baronet take you away from me ?'

So saying, George cast his brawny arms round the lovely girl at his side, and passionately clasped her t > his beating heart, until she had to beg to be relea ed. Lovtrs' walk«, like all other mundane joys, must, however, come to an end, and the young farmer and his beloved had at length to part at their usual trysting place near the farmhouse at Langloan. Riding into the fair city one morning, on his way t > the office where he held the position of juuior partner in a well-known tirm of krwyers, and which he held more from his father's inilueLce than his own merit, Uougias Stuart, only son of Sir William Stuart, whose countiy house Jay a few miles out of Edinburgh, had seen the fair vision at the farmhouse at Langloan, and had, sooth to say, been rather captivated thereby He was a young man of about twenty-five somewhat above the middle height, with a lithe active slender person, which by training had been brought to the highest perfection of strength aud grace, and he rode his chestnut thoroughbred with the ease of a practised horseman.

' Wo, then! steady, old boy! gently, Sultan ! Confound it! the horse has got a htjne in his foot.'

Such was his exclamation one morning as he rode near the farm-house of Langloan, and dismounted to lift his horse's near foot, in which a large stone was firmly embedded, baffling all his efforts at extrication. He had left behind his knife-pick, which every horseman should carry, and the only thing he could do was to lead his horse (already walking quite lame) to the farmhouse, at the door of which Letty was engaged in some household occupation. Having got from her an old knife, he soon dislodged the stone from his horse's foot.

'Many thanks,' said Douglas Stuart, wi'h his most insinuating smile. ' You're Latty Graham, aren't you, of whom I've heard ; s the fair maid of Langloan? Sultan and i are very much obliged to you, Letty, aren't we, good horse ?' and he patted the neck of the noble animal and vaulted lightly into the saddle.

Letty blushed crimson at this tribute to her beauty. ' That's my name, sir. • I'm glad your horse had not to walk far with such a stone in his foot.'

Letty caressed the glossy neck, and the horse neighed with satisfaction and gratitude.

' I see you aud Sultan are quite friends already. He never forgets those who are kind to him, eh, old horse ? Well, goodbye, Letty, and many thanks;' and with another sunshiny smile he raised his hat, and rode off.

Alas, poor Letty ! All that day she was quite bewitched, and seemed to forget where she was and what she was doing. She could think of nothing but the chestnut horse and his handsome rider, who she knew could be no other than Sir William Stuart's only son. And he seemed to be quite taken with her. Now and again, when the tempter threw his spell over the artless maiden, wild visions of future grandeur would flash before her eyes, and she would think (she had not yet got the length of saying it aloud to herself), Why mightn't she be Lady Stuart yet ? Stranger things had happened since the time when King Cophetua had taken the beggar-maid to be his queen. Ladv Stuart ! And if she married George she would only be plain Mrs Linn. And ever and again through her brain there seemed to iioat the words ' Lady Stuart;' and glorious dreams of magnificence and splendour would mingle with her waking thoughts. Chapter 11. • Well, Letty, are you ready ?' It was her lover who spoke, standing at the door of the farmhouse, arrayed in his holiday garments, and with the love-light of happiness beaming in his clear blue eyes. As he stood there, even Letty acknowledged to herself that he was a man of whom any village maiden might have been proud, his stalwart frame seeming the very embodiment of manly power. Vet she did not meet his gaze of ardent affection with a truehearted maiden's fond gaze : and do what she would, she could not help contrasting the slender grace and symmetry of her hightorn admirer with the mere look of power of her betrothed, snl the soft accents and sweet smiles of the one with the homely speech and boisterous laugh of the other. Still she was certain of her place in George's heart, and the admiration of Douglas Stuart might be but his love for any pretty face he might see, so that she thought it as well to appear the fond love of her devoted swain. They drove into town in the shabby dogcart drawn by the old gray mare, and accompanied by a bosom friend of George's and his lass. It was a cloudless day, and the summer beauty of nature lent an exhilaration to the laugh and a joyousness to the speech of the happy couples. Through the far-stretching suburbs they passed, with villas and fiower-bespangled gardens on cither side of the road, and through the more crowded thoroughfares, until they reached the centre of the city, and put up their humble vehicle at a well-known hostelry. ( To he continued. ; A Pretty Faithful Index of the state of the stomach and liver is the condition of the skin. The most prominent causes of sullowness are indigestion and biliousness. Kidney diseases, close confinement and poverty of the blood also tend to rob the cheek of the ruddy glow of health. To regain lost color, and what is much more important, to remove the causes of discoloration and wanness of visage, check irregularities "and fertilize the blood with Udolpho Wolfe's Schiedam Aromatic Schnapps.