LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1212, 22 January 1878, Page 3

LITERATURE.

PLAYING W 7 ITH EDGED TOOLS. Anjosy. {Concluded.) 1 Why not tell me who it is '!' ' I won't do that. I will show him you to-night, instead. He will bo there, and the probabilities are '—here Isabel laughed—' I may be dancing with him: and I will manage that you shall know which is the one. Now, surely, you will do as much for me.'

' I will ; I will, indeed, if he is there' ' Oh, oh ! so you are brought to book at last, are you, Miss Dora. And <ih ! he must be there, and all will be delightful ! lam so very, very glad, dear; so intensely happy. And now that I have begun, I will tell y.u all about me and mine from first to la=t, and what a blessed relief it will be! Not now; no, not now ; to-morrow, after you have seen him. 1 should be kilt entirely, before setting out for the ball, if I began it.' ' And you will be sure to make me understand which it is—you will be dancing wit so many ?' 'Be aisy. I will come up to you and say • this is Mr ' ah, bother! I was going' to tell you his name. We must fix upon a password.' ' Suppose you bring him to me after dancing, Isabel, and, aay well, you might say something about September ba'ls being better than winter ones.'

'Y©3, yes, that will do capitally,' said Isabel, ' I can easily make up something that he won't suspect. And now what will you say when in turn you present to me your cavalier ?'

'I might say "If this ball is to be the last rose of summer," at least it ia a great success,'

' How good ! Your brain is more fertile than mine. But, look here—you might tell me just this : is it an engagement ?' ' No, not quite that. Not in words ;at least, not actually. I thought—l thought perhaps he would have written—or come.'

' But there's no doubt he means it ? ' 'No doubt,' softly murmured Dora in answer. ' I think there cannot be any doubt of that.' And thus they talked, as light-hearted girls will, instead of resting. And the eventful evening drew on. 111. The Assembly rooms at Brillwater were brilliantly lighted that night. The ladies cloak-room presented a remarkably pretty sight. If half-veiled charms be ever the most attractive, the opera-cloaks, half on, half off, here revealing a round, white arm, fettered with brightly-glancing jewellery, here a soft shoulder emerging from mysteries of lace and velvets, only enhanced each wearer's charms. A side-door, opening for a moment, disclosed a sight of the ball-room. Isabel caught one glimpse into it; a bright smile of satisfaction lit up her face as she turned to Dora, who stood fastening her gloves. ' Come,' she said, 'I think it is going to be a very pleasant ball.' 'Oh, stop yet a moment I'pleaded Dora. 'Have you ever felt, Isabel, that happiness —I mean wishes realised at last, made one feel frightened ? I seem to have no courage left to face them all—and yet I have longed so for this moment !'

' Never ft ar ; it will be all right after the iirst plunge. Take courage, and don't forget the '■ last rose of summer." '

' I wish I could forget it at this moment! It would help me more than anything.' ' Then f<-rget it straightway ! " lie either fears his fate too much, or his deserts are small," who does not say something or other: 1 forget what now. So cheer up and come along.' ' Sow, my young ladies, am I to wait for you all night V called their aunt, who had only that instant been released from lie maid's hands. ' When I was young, I never troubled my chaperon in going to a ball, it was only in coming away I had to be waited for '

' Ah, then, that is so lucky, auntie,' said Isabel, ' you will have all the more sympathy for ns to night when we want to stop for the extra dance. Come along, Dora, I say : Aunt Lechnr re is leading the way like a general going to battle ; let us follow her to the death.'

Progress was not altogether easy. The dancers were promenading after the first quadrille, and it was difficult to get a general survey of the scene. But when Mrs Lech mere anchored in a seat placed expressly for her near the top of the room; people crowded up. Dora was welcomed back to Brillwater by many old acquaintances, and got sundry names put down on her card while the music was tuning up, finally starting off in the waltz with young Lieutenant Tillotson. Isabel watched her narrowly, wondering whether he was the hero. Her awn heart was beating. ' Cur dance, I think, Miss Blake.' With a word and smile, she put her arm within that of Major Campbell. He was a remarkably good-looking man, rather fair in complexion, with a smile as sweet as a woman's, and an eye that could carress, and plead, and speak at will. 1 Yes, our dance,' murmured Isabel. ' But I thought you were not coming to claim it. Why were you watching me from a dis tance ?'

The question was not answered. They had some ado to make their way amid the waltzers.

And the evening went on. Isabel gave Dora a laughing shake of the head now and again, in secret reference to whatever cavalier she might then be dancing with, but they had not met. The denoument was, however, at hand. Dora had been taken to her seat by a partner, who had departed with a bow, thinking Miss Lechmere evinced less capacity for conversation than she had done last winter, when up the long ball-room full in sight, came Isabel on Major Campbell's arm. They were a couple that the eye might well love to linger on, so tall, so handsome, so distinguished. Dora beheld them from afar, and her hands met and tightened their grasp nervously one upon another. Often in her dreams, afterwards, she saw that ballroom scene, with those two figures advancing toward* her; only, ere they came quite close, she would waken with a cry of resistance and distress.

Now, in real life, she remained pcifectly quiet, outwardly unmoved, but her heart was throbbing painfully, as if hampered by some pressure of suspense. How thankful she was that no one spoke to hi r just then ! A strong presentiment, ga curious apprehension, mingled with that suspense most terribly. I hey reached her, and her hand was taken by Major Campbell. Did his eyes shrink just a little in meeting her ?—or did she only fancy it ? ' You are in so much request, Miss Lechmere, one can hardly get a chance of welcoming you back to Brill water.' \ es, has she not been busily engaged—dancing with everybody !' exclaimed Isabol. ' Why, Dora, you must confess that September balls are quite as good as winter ones! '

<3 really thiuk I must,' replied Dora : and she joined in her cousin's low laugh. Major Campbell stood for some minutes talking with them, and then strolled away. Isabel touched Dora's hand with a pressure. ' Not a word, now,' she said. ' But what of le votre '!' ' He is—not here."'

' Oh, but lam sorry ! it takes away half my pleasure. What, these lancers already. Major Lindsay!' !>he went away laughing—how soon she seemed to have forgotten I Dora was left sitting alone. Not here! Oh, no, never would he be here again, a memory from the past to haunt her. To haunt her evermore with its falsely beguiling smile.

' Pshaw !' cried its owner fraetiously, ' I daresay she - she thought nothing. It was but a flirtation all said and done.' ' Was it ?' returned the troublesome conscience. ' You wooed her, and you kuew it, and there was trust given back to you, and you were over earnest to win what you were not faithful enough to ca-e to keep. A sore heart, a disappointed faith, lie of a surety at your door touight!' When the ball was over, and the girls were at home again, and dresses and wreaths discarded, Isabel sat on the floor at Dora's feet, half hiding her face on the lap of her cousin. She made her full confession ; for she had promised that night to be Major Campbell's wife. • You did like him last winter, Dora, did you not ?' she said.' } very lady likes him, and he deserves it. Please say you like him.'

' Yes, yes. Eest quite assured I like him. Isabel.'

' Thank you, cousin mine. He says he fell in love with me at once ; that he had never before seen any one he in the least cared for. lam so proud and happy: and yet I feel a desperate kind of humiliby quile new to me. Even Aunt Lechmere might do with me what she would. Dou you know, although I was so disappointed for you, poor darling, it gave me a momentary relief to hear your friend was not there? It has occurred to me that we were playing rather a dangerous game. Suppose we had both loved the same man ! '

' Ay, suppose that, gasped Dora. ' And now you will tell me all about him, as I have told you—his name ; his ' ' Listen, Isabel,' interrupted the unhappy girl - and her voice sank a little before the conclusion of the sentence. 'You must promise never, never to ask me anything about —about him again. I heard something at the ball to-night which makes it all over between us ; quite over. I must not think of him ; and ' ' Surely he was not one of those who went to the W est Indies ? ' ' I—l—believe he was. Yes—one of those.'

An hour later, when Isabel, in the next room, had dropped to sleep with a smile upon her lips, a poor weak human soul lay struggling uith a cruel suffering, treading low in the valley of sorrow and humiliation. There was a white lie for which she stood accountable; but that sat lightly upon her conscience; it was a lie that might almost have served as a passport into heaven. No, it was the lot of all, according to Goethe ; but it came to her in one concentrated blow, that seemed to tear her very soul in sunder, and leave her prostrated. " Thou mustfgo without, go without!'

One day, years afterwards, a confidential friend was talking to Isabel Campbell, long since a happy wife and mother, of Dora Lechmere.

' It is strange, very strange, that one so good and attractive as she should never have married. I may be mistaken, but I always suspected something -went wrong the year she was at Bull water.'

' Yes, it all took place at Brillwater. Something—l never knew what—came between her and her lover; and he went to the VWt Indies.'

So spoke, so thought Isabel. Perhaps her husband, Colonel Campbell, could have told a different tale -