LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1211, 21 January 1878, Page 3

LITERATURE.

PLAYING WITH EDGED TOOLS. Ary out/. ( Continued.) Many a familiar group did the cousins find among them. Both looked very pretty in their simple but becoming attire; and they received a flattering welcome from all sides, and spent a fleeting hour. But hours pass away, whether fleeting or slowly ; and they had to get home for luncheon. ‘ Dear me, how my head aches with the sun ! ’ said Isabel, impatiently throwing off her hat.

‘ I daresay you are tired,’ observed Dora, leaning on the canisters as she mounted the staircase slowly, just as though she were tired herself. ‘ These morniug rambles do fatigue one.’ ‘ Not always,’ murmured Isabel.

Luncheon over, they were left alone for a few minutes, Mrs Lechmere having gone to her room. Isabel sat listlessly pushing back her luxuriant hair.

* Dora !’ she suddenly exclaimed, ‘did you not find it very dead-and-alive on the hill this morning ?’ * Why—yes. Very, as compared with what it used to be last winter. Perhaps the season makes the difference ?’

‘ Oh, does it though ! It is pleasant enough, sometimes, I can tell you. But so many were absent to-day.’ ‘ Not caring to fatigue themselves for the ball to-night.’ ‘Nonsense. The officers are away—at least some of them.’

Dora caught up her breath. ‘ How do you know that they are ?’ ‘The Roper girls told me on the hill. A lot of them went over to the races at Toole yesterday, and did not come back last night ’ ‘ If they do not come back for the ball.’ ‘ Oh, they will do that; trust them. But, what is it to you, ma petite, whether they come or not ?’

‘ Oh, nothing,’ answered Dora, evasively. * Well, you speak as though your heart were in your mouth,’ observed Isabel keenly scanning her. Mrs Lechmere entered and no more was said. She sat down in her comfortable arm chair.

‘ Now, Dora, where is the “ Times ?” cried she. ‘ Thank goodness you are back ; for Isabel reads in so flighty and disjointed a way, that I have to make her sit with he'' back to the window to prevent her looking out ’.

Isabel burst out laughing, and shook her head at Dora : who settled down dutifully to leading articles of rather an abstruse kind, and to other matters in which she took no interest.

Mra Lechmere was corpulent in no small degree; she generally made, as to- day, a very substantial meal at luncheon, Hanked by some exceedingly good old brown sherry; which sherry she did not press upon her nieces, advising them to keep to claret, as better for digestion During this period of reading, therefore, she kept up a series of small naps ; on awaking from which she, each time, rapped the table with her knuckles, telling Dora to read more dis tinctly. Isabel amused herself by watching the pantomime from the easy-chair, in which she was skimming a three-volume novel, indulging now and then in taking those long, out-of-window stares between whiles.

Mrs Lechmere’s health, in spite of luncheons, was V‘ry good; her digestion-as sometimes happens with those who have kept their hearts through life at an habitually cold temperature—gave her but little trouble Nevertheless, she exacted from her doctor an attendance of at least once a week. Presently he walked in, having failed to come in the morning. As Mrs Lechmere was queen of the lady gossips at Brillwater, so this doctor might assuredly be reckoned king, and it was even suspected that when facts failed h ; m he was quite capable of adorning the tale with a little appropriate fiction. He considered his guineas cheaply earned by a few stock remarks on his patient’s pulse; the prelude to a good long confab of an hour or so, for Mrs Lechmere was a shrewd woman of the world, and no dull companion when she chose to exert herself. The girls were not wanted, and ran up to their rooms. ‘ Now I’ll tell you what we’ll do,’ cried Isabel, holding Dora by the waist, ‘we will lie down on the bed and get up our looks and our strength for the ball. There’s nothing to do up, and it’s very stupid. Heigh ho! I wish I could hire out the inside of my head for a while Now and then it goes at a rate; now, leaving me no peace with the past; now, worrying about the future.’ ‘I think,’ said Dora, polishing a pebble in a brooch that Isabel wore at her throat, ‘ I should be jealous of giving up some of my memories.’ ‘Well, there’s something in that, too.’ And then there fell a pause, the girls maintaining the same attitude. ‘ Dora,’ said Isabel, at last, ‘ it strikes me that somebody has got an attraction here at Brillwater,’

‘1 quite agree with you,’ retorted Dora, laughing, ‘ I think that somebody has.’ ‘ And this somebody’s name is—Dora ’ ‘And this somebody’s name is—lsabel.’

* Get away wid yonr blarney,’ cried Isabel, ‘talcing the words out of my mouth like that. I have seen it over since you came.’ ‘So have I,’ returned the younger girl * From the very hour I got upstairs here on my arrival. Look at your loss of appetite.’ ‘ hi ever mind my appetite until your own mends,’ said Isabel. ‘ Your eyes were on all sides of the hill this morning looking for him. The question now is—will you confess?’ 4 Will you ?’ ‘No.’ ‘No!’

Isabel shook Dora playfully, and backed her towards her own door.

‘ There, go and lie down, for the obstinate little wretch that you are. I know the main part of the secret, and I shall soon find him out.’

The girl went into her room and lay down on the bed, a medley of memories and hopes astir within her. A quarter of an hour, and Isabel softly opened the door. * Are you asleep ?’ ‘No.’

* Then listen here ! May I lie down by you ? That’s right; make room, Miss! You do not deserve it at all, but—l give in ; I am come to confess. There is an attraction.’

‘ Now, that is very good of you, Isabel. Although I might say, as you. did, that I knew it all along. I felt sure of it.’ ‘ I only give in to a certain extent, though added Isabel ; ‘ but I can’t keep it in any longer. You will see him at the ball.’ v To he continued .)