LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 996, 4 September 1877, Page 3

LITERATURE.

HOW OUR POLLY WAS WON,

From the Dublin " University Magazine."

You might have knocked my father down with a feather, ho said - if ever that asoiitishingfeat was performed—when Jack asked his consent to marry his daughter Mary. ' What!' he gasped, fairly surprised out of accustomed suavity; ' marry Mary !—Jack, you're mad. I'm sure Mary ! | won't marry you.' ' I think she will,' said Jack, quiety ; ' at least I'm willing to run the risk of rejection if you've no objection, sir.' ' Not I,' returned my father ;' why should I ? I've known you, Jack, from that high, and never heard much harm of you ; which is saying a good deal in your favour, considering what young men are now-a-days. You're a personable sort of feliow, your connections are unexceptionable, and I suppose you are getcing a decent screw at the bank—eh ? - and all that. No,' continued my father, in his judicial summing-up tone, ' I don't think I've any objection to urge. But there's one thing, Jack, had better be understood between us at once. Of course Mary will have her share of the trifle I have been able to put by for th" enrls to start them in housekeeping, but beyond that—' 'Please don't, dear Mr Brown,' interrupted Jack ; 'if it's the same to you, I'd rather you didn't give Mary a marriage portion.' ' ( h ! very well,' said my father, drily; ' but you'll find matrimony an expensive luxury, Jack - that is, when you're married. But'-here the subject presented itself to his mind in such irresistible comic light, that despite good manners, he burst into a loud and hearty ' ho ! ho ! ho !' Undismayed by this outburst, Mr Ragge thanked him warmly, squeezed his hand in ultra-lilial fashion, and bowed himself out of the dressing-room, to which he had been shown on the plea of urgent private business. The privacy lasted not a minute longer than the sound of his visitor's footstep died on my father's ear. The news was too astounding to be confined to his own breast, and a family council was hastily convened (Mary, luckily, being abroad on some errand,, to discuss the amazing intelligence. It is lamentable to record, but a spirit of utter incredulity pervaded the entire assemblage. What! sister Polly—the born old maid, as we had all long since christened her —who had been girding at the opposite sex with her tongue ever since she could speak plain—and very plain she could speak on that theme—going to take a husband? or rather, somebody found bold enough to take her for a wife ?—lncredible ! Had she not flouted the boys when in frilled trousers and tuckers, belaboured them with hoop-stocks, and boxed their ears with battledores, whenever luckless urchins came within reach of her vixenish little hands ? And later, when a growing sense of shame restrained these corporal demonstrations of her antipathy, had she not trained her tongue to such sharp sayings, that many a bashful youth exposed to' them would gladly have compounded for the old box on the ears? She accept a husband ! Impossible ! and what's impossible can't be.

This logic, though mainly feminine, was without a iiaw. But, at my mother's prudent suggestion, it was determined neither to help nor hinder the inevitable. Mary was not to be spoken to on the subject, but left to work unaided the issue we clearly foresaw. Some kindly sympathy we all felt for Jack's impending discomfiture, for all admitted that he was a good fellow, and deserved better fortune; but, as my father said, he wasn't the first grown baby who had cried for the moon, and after a time discovered that he could get on very well without it. Having been warned, he might be left to find out his mistake for himself. For some months following his communication to my father, Jack continued to drop in of an evening much as before - perhaps a little oftener; but he paid no marked attention to Mary; nay, of all the girls she was the one whose presence he seemed oftenest to ignore. Her caustic speeches, of which she was never sparing in the company of any young member of the obnoxious gender, were seldom honored by him with so much as a raised eyebrow. Even Fido on the hearthrug, who came in for his share of objurgation for being so lost to shame as to have joined the enemy's ranks on coming into the world, did not treat them with greater indifference. Logic was triumphant, and every member of our circle took occasion to plume him or herself more or less on the superior penetration which foresaw the issue from the first. Ido believe Mary had never been so popular among us, as when thus unconsciously demonstrating what capital judges we all were. 'Precisely as I predicted,' one day said my father, with extra complacency. ' Ragge, like a sensible fellow, has thought better of it. I shall take an opportunity of congratulating him on his good sense ' When lo ! the very next morning, Mr Jack Ragge, besought another private interview. The pair remained closeted for a much longer time than before, to the extreme tantalization of the whole family—Mary expected, who went on unconcernedly with her great tambour picture (labor of love if ever there was one !) which had for subject the drowning of the male children born to the Israelites in Egypt. Surely the human countenance never wore a more portentous look of wisdom than wreathed my father's as ho entered the morning room .vhere we were all assembled ; unless, perhaps, Lord Thurlow's, of wh m it was said, no man could possibly be wise as Thurlow looked.

' Mary, my love,' said my father, on entering, 'would you kindly go and look for my glasses? I can't tell you exactly where to look, but you know they must be about somewhere ; so seareh till you find them, tl ere s a dear child.' No sooner had Mary closed the door after her than my father softly turned Lhe key. Then, taking from his waistooat pocket the spectacles He had started her on a vain hunt for he put them on, and took a deliberate survev of our curious faees all rouad. 'Well?—well, papa?—well!' ran like a sharp musketry discharge along the line, as his eyes travelled fom one to another. 'W-e-l-l!' echoed he, drawing out the monosyllable to most provoking length, 'I suppose you are all burning with curiosity to know Mr Hagge's business with me? f otto keep you longer in suspense, know that the Saucy Folly has struck her flag. You are

to have a brother-in-law—this day week—by Mary's express desire.' This day week !no number of notes of admiration are adequate to express our condition on this curt announcement. It took away our breath ; as all who have ever had anything to do in the way of preparation for that high sacrificial rite will easily understand. A week ! —what would people say of such indecent haste? —not to mention the impossibility of providing one-tenth of the things absolutely necessary for the occasion. The idea was preposterous—its accomplishment impossible—we assured each other and papa a score of times over. But, somehow, events had shaken our faith in the impossible; so when my father, having listened in silence till our protests were exhausted, quietly said, ' The affairjwas settled : Jack and Mary wo aid be married that day week,' we resigned ourselves with the numbed feeling of having experienced an electric shock. (To be continued,.)