LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 1052, 10 November 1877, Page 3

LITERATURE.

A DAY IN BRIAR WOOD. ( Continued .) ‘And you say I am not to be married !’ she exclaimed. Dame Nesa had her head bent over the cards. She shook it without looking up. ‘ I don’t see a ring nowhere, young lady, and that’s the blessed truth. There ain’t one ; that’s more. There ain’t a sign o’ one. Neither was there the other time, I remember : that time in London. And so—l take it that there won’t never be.’ ‘ Then I think you are a very^disagreeable story telling old woman !’ dashed Helen, all candour in her mortification. * Not be married, indeed!’ ‘ Why, my dear, I’d be only too glad to promise you a husband if the cards foretellod it,’ said Dame Ness, pityingly. ‘ Yours is the best fortune of all, though, if you could but bring your mind to see it. Husbands is more plague nor profit. I’m sure I had cause to say so by the one that fell to my share.’ In high dudgeon Helen pushed the cards together. Mrs Nesa, getting some kind words from the rest of us, curtsied as she went off to the cottage to see about the kettles for our tea. ‘ You are a nice young lady !’ exclaimed Bill ‘ Showing your temper because the cards don’t give you a sweetheart!’ Helen threw her fan at him. ‘ Mind your own business,’ retorted she. And he went away laughing. ‘ And, my dear, I say the same as William,’ added Lady Whitney. ‘ One really might think that you were—were eager to be married.’ ‘ All cock-a-hoop for it,’ struck in Cattledon, speaking for Helen’s benefit, and looking as prim as you please. *As the housemaids are.’ ‘And no such great crime, either,’ returned Helen, defiantly. * Fancy that absurd old thing telling Jme I never should be!’ ‘ Helen, ray dear. I think the chances are that you will not be married,’ quietly spoke Miss Deveen. ‘ Oh—do you !’ ‘ Don’t be cross, Helen. Our destinies are not in our own hands.’ Helen bit her lip, laughed, and recovered her temper. She was like her father; apt to flash out a hot word, but never angry long. * Now —please, Miss Deveen, why do you think I shall not be ?’ she asked playfully. * Because, my dear, you have had three chances, so to say, of marriage, and each time it has been frustrated. In two of the instances by —if we may dare to say it—the interposition of Heaven. The young men died beforehand in an unexpected and unforeseen manner : Chatles Lea’child and Mr Temple ’ ‘ I never was engaged to Mr Temple,’ interrupted Helen. ‘ No; but, by all I hear, you shortly would have been. Helen gave no answer. She knew perfectly M-ell that she had expected an offer from Slingsby Temple ; that his death, as she bel'cved, alone prevented its being made. She’d have said Yes to it, too. Miss Deveen went on. * We will not give more than an allusion to Captain Foliott; he does not deserve it ; but your marriage with him came nearest of all. It may be said, Heien, without exaggeration, that you have been on the point of marriage twice, and very nearly so a third time. Now what does this prove ?’ ‘That luck was against me,’ said Helen, lightly. ‘ Ay, child; luck, as we call it in this world. I would rather say, Destiny. God knows best. Do you wonder that I have never married ?’ continued Miss Deveen in a less serious tone.

*1 never thought about it,’ answered Helen.

‘ I know that some people have wondered at it; for I was a girl likely to marry -or it may he better to say, likely to be sought in marriage. I had good looks, good temper, good birth, and a good fortune : and I daresay I was just as willing to be chosen as all young girls are Yes, 1 say that all girls possess an innate wish to marry; it is implanted in their nature, comes with their mother’s milk. Let their station bo high or low, a royal princess, if you will, or the housemaid Jemima Cattledon suggested but now, the same natural instinct lies within each—a wish to be a wife. And no reason, either, why they should not wish it; it’s nothing to be ashamed of; and Helen, my dear, I would rather hear a girl avow it openly, as you do, than pretend to be shocked at its very mention.’ ?o:ne gleams of sunlight dickered on Miss Dcveen’s white hair, and fine features as she sat under the trees, her bronze-coloured silk gown falling around her in rich folds, and a big amethyst brooch fastening her collar. I began to think how good-looking sho must have been when young, and where the eyes of the young men of those days could been, l ady Whitney, looking like a bundle in her light dress that ill became her, sat near fanning herself. ‘Yes, I do wonder, now I think of it, that you never married,’ said Helen. ‘ To tell you the truth, 1 wonder myself •sometimes,’ replied Miss L»eveeu, smiling. ‘ 1 think —I believe—that, putting other ulvantages aside, T was well calculated to >e a wife, and should have made a good one. S’ot that that has anyth'ng to do with it; or you see the most incapable of women marry, and wh,o remain incapable to their dying day. I, could mention wives at this

moment, within the circle of my acquaintance, who are no more lit to be wives than is that three-legged stool Johnny is balanc ing himself upon ; and who in consequence unwittingly keep their husbands and their homes in a state of perpetual turmoil. I was not one of these, i am sure ; but here I am, unmarried still.’

‘Would you marry now?’ asked Helen briskly : and we all burst into a laugh at the question, Miss Heveen’s the merriest. ‘Marry at sixty! Not if I know it. I have at least twenty years too many for that; some might say thirty. But I don’t believe many women give up the idea of marriage before they are forty ; and I do not see why they should.’ ‘ But why did you not marry, Miss Deveen ? ’

‘ Ah, my dea’% if you wish for an answer to that question you must ask it of Heaven. I cannot give one. All I can tell you is, that I did hope ro be married, and expected to be married, waited to be married; but here you see me in ray old age—Mias Deveen.’ ‘ Did you—never have a chance of it—an opportunity ? ’ questioned Helen with hesitation. ‘ I had more than one chance : I had two or three chances, just as you have had. Dnring the time that each “ chance” was passing, if we may give it the term, I thought assuredly I should soon be a wife. But each chance melted away from this cause or that cause, ending in nothing. And the conclusion I have come to, Helen, for many a year past, is, that God, for some wise purpose of His own, decreed that I should not marry. What we know not here, we shall know hereafter,’ Her tone had changed to one of deep reverence. She did not go on for a little time. ‘ When I look around the world and note how many admirable women see tbeir chances of marriage dwindle down one after another, from unexpected and apparently trifling causes, it is impossible not to feel that the finger of God is at wmrk. That ’ * But now, Miss Deveen, we could marry if we would - all of us,’ interrupted Helen. *lf we did not have to regard suitability and propriety, and all that, there’s 'not a girl but could go off to church and many somebody.’ (To he continued,')