LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 992, 30 August 1877, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE,

In spite of all that has been done in the last fifty years to improving the channel, the course of true love is still uncertain in places. An incident indicative of this, although somewhat out of the usual line, occurred in Danebury recently. There were two suitors for a young woman’s affections. Number one was first acquainted with her, and had kept pretty steady company with her through the past month, when number two appeared. The latter very soon got the best hold, and this became apparent to the former. The young lady gave herself up to number, one until the day after the Fourth, when she suddenly and rather decidedly veered about to the stranger who is new intown, learning the jewelry business. Number one was forgotten as easily, apparently, as if he had been an old debt. It was the night of tire fifth that this than<re in feeling dawned upon him. He had purchased a quart of new apples, and taken them to her house. There was company present on his arrival, and he requested to see her privately in the hall. She complied with a reluctance that struck him as being singu'ni. ‘ Here is something for you, Julia,’ he whispered, extending the package. She colored slightly as she said, 1 T cannot take it, thank you.’ ‘ But you don’t know what it is,’he urged. ‘ It is a quart of new apples, just come in market.’ She made no move. ‘ Why, Julia, take them. They won’t hurt you. They are ripe.*

‘ No, I mustn’t,’ she persisted, keeping her eyes oast down : J ‘Why not?’ he pleaded. ‘You don’t think I’d bring 'em up here if I thought they would hurt you, do you ? ’ She moved uneasily, but said nothing. ‘ Julia,’ he b gan in a broken voice, ‘ don’t you believe me when I tell you they are ripe ? ’ She did not answer. ‘ Can it be possible,’ he continued in a voice of pain, ‘ that you believe that I would try to make you sick ! that I’d bring anything up here that would upset you ? ’ ‘ The company are waiting, and I must go back to them,’ she said, speaking in a constrained tone, and reaching out to the handle of the parlor door.

‘ You won’t take them ? ’ He was very white, and his voice trembled with suppressed passion. ‘ No.’ ‘ Then I’ll go home, and eat every goldarned one of ’em before I touch my bed, if they kill me deader than Gfoliar,’ and with this ferocious threat he bounced out of the house. Whether he did as he promised is not known, but as he was around on the street the next day’ it is more than likely that wiser thoughts prevailed. That afternoon he started for her house, to see if the dreadful thing was true that that jeweler, wdiom he designated by the prefix of “ pole legs,” had really supplanted him. As he neared the house he saw, with anger, that the jeweler was there, playing croquet with Julia. The sight maddened him. For a moment he looked at them, with clenched hands, then he hurried away, with a gleam in his eye that denoted a storm. In a quarter of an hour he was again approaching the place. He had both hands in the pockets of his sack, as if he was holding on to something valuable. The dapper young jeweller was still engaged in the game with the fair young Julia, and their laughing remarks grated distastefully upon his ear. He marched straight in to the yard. Julia looked up and saw him, and a frown covered her face. He saw it, and understood its import at once. His own face grew black with wrath. He turned to her. ‘Julia, have you given me up for this cuss ?’ he savagely inquired, ‘ What do you mean by such language as that?’ she angrily demanded. While the party thus indelicately indicated stared at the new comer as if he very much doubted his own existence. ‘Just what Isay,’ retorted the discarded one.

* Well, the quicker you leave this yard the better you’ll please me,’ was the spiteful rejoinder from the fair one. * Then it’s true, it’s true,’ he howled in a voice of anguish. ‘ She has left me for old pole legs, oh ! ’ This with a sudden reversal of tone, as the name brought up a realisa tion of the hated presence, an- the one that’s done it, are you ? ’ Turning in a rage upon his rival. ‘ You are the scoundrel that left me to buy her things for a whole month, to get her sweetened up for you, and then you come in an’ take her to yourself. Where were you on the Fourth?’ he screamed with biting sarcasm. * Why didn’t you show yourself when there was money to spend, an’ things to show her that cost cash down. Where were you when the ice cream an’ cake was around. Oh, you old gimlet eye,’ ne added, suddenly removing one hand from the recesses of a pocket, and hurling a raw egg full in the face of his rival, which breaking in the contact completely trans-fo-med the entire expression of the jeweller. ‘ Where were you, I say,’ he yelled, dancing around and drawing forth another egg. At the advent of this awful article, Miss Julia scampered into the house, and the affrighted and almost blinded rival struck out wildly for escape ; but the foe was after him, and not ten feet had been cleared when the second egg caught him between the shoulders, and sprinkled its glowing color over his back. The unfortunate man ran with all his might seeking for escapre, bat baffled in the search He flew over the vegetables, and darted around the trees, but the avenger kept close to him, plastering him with omelettes, and plying him with questions like this : ‘ Where were you on the Fourth ?’ Egg. ‘ Kept away did you, till the Fourth was over, the costliest day in the year ?’ Egg. * Knew cream was up) that day, did you ? Egg. And the eggs flew with all the vengeance an unrequited affection could impart to them. And the unhappy Julia, standing in a trance of horror at the window, saw her favored one pelted in the back, in the side, on the head and against the legs ; saw him tear through the shrubbery , like a winged omlette ; saw the golden liquid stream from his hair, his chin, his coat tails, and his linger tips ; saw him shed scrambled eggs, chromos and circus posters at every jump ; saw him finally bound cyer the back fence, and sweep across the back lots like a simoon of billiousness, and then she gave a scream and fainted away.