LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1410, 22 August 1878, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE HOUSE ACRO S THE STREET. A Storv in Two Chapters. [" AH the Year Round."] CHAPTER I. Tt was the narrowest street imaginable, a mere flagged passage indeed, protected by little posts and chains from suspicion even of being anything so vulgar as a thoroughfare ; and opening into one of those quaint old Blromsbury squares at one end, and a quainter old crescent at the other. There was a church at the corner, old too, with a square < ; othic tower, buiit in prey stone, green with damp, and black with age and soot, and abutting directly on the pavement, without any intervening space of grass or gravel to give it dignity and seclusion. The house stood close beside it, a little back ia the shadow of the big tower, and divided from the side walk by a flight of stone steps and , r an iron railing ; a tall, narrow, dark red building of the time of Queen Anne, with a ponderous brazen knocker, and a couple of antiquated iron extinguishers, set at either side of the gateway : extinguishers which the link-boys were wont to use to quench their flaring torches, in the old days, af er their mistress had emerged, powered and hooped, and with dainty patches set cuuningly on cheek and chin, from the sedan chair which had borne her to a night's festivity at Banelagh or Vauxhall; and had been handed by her brocaded and bagwigged lord up the tall flight of steps aforementioned.

I wonder was ever a dameiel among those high-heeled and delicate-featured belles of the eighteenth century, one-tenth part as lovely a» she who reigned in the old red house when I lived over the way? Ah me! how often I have sat and watched her, doing nothing, thinking nothing, only taking in the mere sight of her grace and beauty, as if they were rest and refrenhment to the wearied mind and worn-out b.idy!

I was only a London surgeon, a plain, middle-aged bachelor, with a large practice, and a big, dingy house, facing the old, redbrick tenement over the way; a housa in which I snatched my hasty hours of rest, and devoured hurried meals, and saw servant girls and other impecunious patients for a couple of hours in the morning ; but whioh hitd never been sanctified by a woman's loving smile, or gladdened by the patter of baby feet; or made beautiful by the flowers, and needlework, and thousand and one trifles which make even the homeliest "home" so different from the mere hoa&Q in whioh a man Uvea The house

across the street was of far more interest to me than my own. J suppose Mus Robarts must hava been about one-and-twenty when Bhe and her father first came to live there. She attracted my attention at odco, a tall, slim, delicate-looking girl, chiefly noticeable for the languor of bearing and movement, in c mtrast to the noble lines of her face and form, as she saljied out of a morning to early the grey old church; the hlonmy wh teness of her cheek showing whiter near ht;r pla ; n black dross and the red edges of her b.g prayer-book. The book seemed too heavy for the slender fingers which carried it. Doctors notice these things, you see; but I am glad to think I begin to take an interest in her, even then. The interest grew, however, even when the cause for it was gone ; for, before many months, I saw that the sweet face, with its crown of nut-brown hair, looking out over a fence of mignonette for her father's return of an evening, had gained a delicate rosetint, which showed brighter for the olive green background of the heavy window curtains, against which her small head took a golden tinge. I think her father was very fond of her. He was a thin, stiff-looking, white-haired man, and used to scold her sometimes for coming out into the evening air with nobbing on her head, when Bhe met him at the door in the summer twilight; and sometimes I could hear his voice sounding sharp and peevish, as he sallied forth to business of a morning. But you could not see his face when he came out with her on his arm on Sunday, or the way in which he glared at any man bold enough to lift his eyes to h<>r, without telling in a moment that she was the very pride and joy of his heart. I don't know when I first began to watch f r my fair neighbour, and note her doings. You see I had not much to amuse me in my own home, and gradually I grew to know her habits bo well, that it would have made anyone laugh to see how I watched for bright spring or summer mornings ; for then I knew she would come out on a little pi ce of leads between their house and the body of the church, whch she had cleverly c nverted into a garden for herself. I believe that in reality it was the roof of the vestry, but she gained access to it by a staircase window and a couple of steps; and there of an early morning I used to Fee her, her tall figure outlined against an oblong patch of pale blue sky, great coarse red pats of yellow daffodils and big purple flags about her feet sometimes her head thrown back and her arms lifted, the wind blowing little soft locks about her brow, and ruffling the drapery of her simple morning gown, as she nailed some truant bough of Virginia creeper back aeainst the dingy red-brick wall where she had trained it; sometimes standing with bent head, and beautiful wh'te hands elapsed round a pot of tall white narcissus, drinking in the sweetness and fragrance with a delight which never guessed at |possible onlookers. Now and then, too, a long slanting ray of sunlight would steal out across the housetops, and fall athwart her pretty head and the yellow daffodils about her feet ; or a great clang of bells would burst from the clustered grey pinnacles of the old churchtower overhead, startling a whole cloud of sparrows from their nest in grimly leering gargoyles, or floriated niches, into the blue expanse above ; and all the while the roar of the great thoroughfares beyond could be heard, Jike the muffled beatings of a mighty heart, pulsing over grey houpe roofs and church tower 3 and the vivid green glimmer of trees in the old square at the corner - a ceaseless echo of all the toil, and pain, and sin, and turmoil seething ever higher and higher in the great city b<yond. That brief morning vision was like a little poem to me j but it was not only then that I saw her.

The Robartses had a custom, unlike most; Londoners of not drawing down their parlour Minds or shutting the shutters till bedtime. Perhaps they had lived in the country, where people are not so anxious to shut out the sweet blue nigh;} and Btars. Anyway it was a habit of theirs ; and I, sitting in the old armchair in the oil parlour over the way, and often too tired after a long d.'.y'a toil to even read, used to find quite a homelike reflection in the warm glow of the parlour window opposite—the old man's white hair and her white dress gleaming out aeainst the dull green walls the glimmor of gold from the picture-frames and her head bent over the keys of the tall ebony harmonium with the orange light from th<j fire making a warm aureole about it, till the grand notes of the instrument, subdued by distance, and mingling with her voice, poured out in Schubert's ms.tchless Addio, or the grander cadence of a Credo by Mozart At those times I was glad to shut my eyes and listen only—listen till the music aid the glow and the gold green brightness about the two heads grew into one harmonious whole, and became in my fancy a part of me; as tho-igh it were my room that held them, and she were sinking to me. I wonder if it would have anjered her if she had known; but she never did. I never even saw her glance across the way. At last I came to know her. They had been living nearly five years in the old red house, when one day Mr Robarts was taken suddenly ill. It was a kind of fit; and in their anxiety +o get the nearest assistance they sent across to me. Of course I went, and it was Magdalen who met me in the hall, put her hand in mine, and saying : ' Thank you for coining ; my father is very ill, and our doctor is away on the Continent,'led me straight upstairs to the room where the old gentleman was lying insensible.

By the time 1 came down again he was not only oonsoious, but declaring himself go muoh b tfer that, if ! had not absolutely forbidden it, he would have dressed and gone out as usual. There were grateful tears in Magdalen's eyes when she thanked me this time ; and sweet as her voice had sounded when it floated aorosii the street in Schubert and Mozart, I never thought the low r'ch tores half so full of melody as now when I heard them speaking —as in my dreams I had sometimes fancied th«m speaking—to me I* went to my heart to chill her gratitude by bad news, but truth must cut where health is in question, and I had to tell her that I was afraid her father would not be quite well for some time yet; snd to ask if his medical man would be long away. ' I don't know —months perhaps. He was very ill himself when he went. Doctor, do you mean that there is anything the matter with papa—anything more than weakness and this hot weather ?' There was such a look of appeal in her eyes that involuntarily I laid my dands on hers, as if I we»e soothing a child. 'You know there must always be some cause for weakness when a man is not naturally feeble, my dear young lady ; and even a little cause ought to be taken in time to prevent its getting greater. I don't think there is any reason for you to be frightened about him, but ho ought to have advice, and the sooner the better.'

That evening I got a note from Mr Robarts asking me to call on him on the following morning, and adding: 'My own doctor is away, as you know. I detest his partner, and put no faith in bigwigs. If you think you can put me to rights, I shall be very glad.' I sent word that I would do as he wished; and from that day no other person attended him till his death. He had an internal malady, which had grown by neglect into even grav.;r proportions than I had »t first supposed. It was that which made him irritable and captious, and inclined at times to tyrannise even over the one being he loved, his onjy child; but he was quite aware of it, and in his better moments woukl tell me : 'lam afraid pain makes me testy, doctor. I was harsh with Magdalen when you were here yesterday ; bit the'a a good girl, a very good girl. She loves her old father, and never gives him back a sharp word or s «ur look.'

And I don't be/ieve she ever did. We were pood friendß now, and I saw her often and in many moods—sad, and gay, and playful, and dreamy—but n«ver with a frown on the s-mooth fair br >w or bitter words on the lips. (To be continued.)