LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1586, 20 March 1879, Page 3

LITERATURE.

HAROLD RIVERS.

[“All the Year Round’”]

IK eight chapters—chapter i. ‘lp you have really made up your mind in the matter, all the arguments iu the world would bo of no avail.’

‘Of very little avail in the present case, Lottie. But let us take your objections one by one and test their value. Miss Deane is a governess, but a very clever governess ; were she otherwise, she would hard y have charge of Mrs Lottie Rivers’ three children. Mrs Rivers believes in cleverness, and likes to have clever people about her, Nextly, Miss Deane is poor. Do you know, I’m rather glad of it. I shouldn’t care to be beholden to my wiie for pocket money. Besides, I’ve enough money for both of ua. Thirdly as regards Miss Deane’s antecedents —you admit yourself that Miss Deane is a lady —a lady who is compelled to earn her bread as a governess V ‘Yes ; Miss Deane is a lady.’ _ < ‘ What more can a man a“k that his wife should be ? If she were Countess of Cawdor she could not be more ; and being a governess, she is not necessarily less. So now, be a good kind sister-in-law, and get the young ones out of the way for a little while, so that I can have Miss Deane to myself for a short half-hour.’

‘ But you are not going to propose to her this morning ?’ ‘ With your leave and, permission, I certainly am. Shall I go and send the youngsters into the garden, or will you ?’ Mrs Rivers left the room, but was not long away. She came back in about five minutes. ‘You know your way to the school room,’ said she. ‘ You will find no one there but Miss Deane.’

4 1 knew I might depend on your kindness. said her brother-in law with a squeeze of the hand. ‘ While I am away, if you have nothing bstter to do, yon can be drawing up an advertisement for another governess.’ He laughed lightly, and was gone. He bounded up the stairs three at a time, and burst into the school room as any boy of fourteen might have done. He took off his hat as he crossed the floor, and going up to Miss Deane, who was sitting by the fire with a book, he frankly held out his hand. He was a sunburnt long-bearded man of six-and-thirty; she was a tall slender woman some ten years younger than that. She colored up painfully as he to'k her hand. Had she a presentiment as to the nature of the confession he was about to make ? When Harold Rivers found himself back in L ndon after several years of desultory wandering ‘from Dan to Beersheba,’ it was only natural that the hot afternoons should often find him at his sister-inlaw’s p l ea sant house by the river, where, seated under the chestnut", with a novel, the clar<-t jug, and his favorite meerschaum, he could forget for a while the noise and the burning flags of Piccadilly. When tired of his own company, there was 1 otie to talk to, or the children to romp with, or a moonlight pull up the river, But by and-by there grew a new pleasure out of these visits to Chestnut Bank. Lottie was sometimes out, visiting or shopping, in which case there was no one left to entertain him but Miss Deane, the governess. He did not grumble ;in fact, a'ter a little time he ceased to regret his sister in-law s absences. He even—s'* deceitful is the heart of man—would make artful inquiries beforehand as to when she was likely to be from home, and time his visits accordingly. Thus the affair went on from day to day, and day by day Harold Rivers floundered more deeply in the quicksands of love. It took but a little time, and he was lost beyond recovery; but he had been looked upon for so many years as a man who would never marry, that his sister-in law suspected nothing. To say that she was not chagrined when Harold told her, would be to say that she was not a woman. But Harold was his own master, and however much she might dislike such »n arrangement, if Miss Deane were really about to become her sister-in-law, she could|uot afford to quarrel with her. ‘ What are you reading this morning ?’ asked Harold as he took np the book which Miss Deane had just laid down, and drew a chair up to the opposite side of the hearth.

‘lt is George Rand’s “ Consuelo.” I must keep up my French, you know ; and the book is one of my favorites.’ ‘ And one of mine too, although I have not openei it for a dozen years. It is strange,’ he added, ‘on how many points your tastes and mine agree. And not in books alone, but in other things. After sketching that pretty bit of riverside scenery the other day, with the big elm-tree in the foreground, and the quaint old gables of Vaasittart House in the distance, what should I find, on turning over your portfolio, but the very same bit taken by you months ago ! It’s the same in music—what you like I like, and what I like you like ; or at least you told me so. Don’t you believe after all, that the do :trine of Eclectic Affinities has some foundation in fact ?’

‘ When two rather commonplace people fancy that they have certain aesthetic tastes in common, it is very nice to call it a case of eclectic affinity. It seems to put them on a pedestal by themselves, and that is always flattering to one’s amour propre.’ She spoke demuredly, but there was a half-veiled smile on her lips.’ *A hit, a palpable hit!; cried Harold laughingly. ‘ However, I have not come here this morning to discuss aesthetics, My errand has an altogether different object in view.’ He was speaking earnestly enough now, toying a little nervously with the book, and turning over its pages, but seeing nothing of its contents, ‘ I have come, Emilia, to tell you that I love you very very dearly, and to ask you to become my wife.' He looked up at her, and then drew his chair a little closer to hors. On her face the colour came and went fitfully. ‘We have kn iwn each other only a very little while,’ he went on, ‘ but quite long enough for me to feel sure that in you I have found the one woman who can make my life happy. You too have seen something of me—the best side doubtless ; we men always hide our worst side from the woman we love. In any case, you have had some opportunity for finding out whether you like or dislike me.’ ‘ Dislike you, Mr Rivers !’ ‘ Some opportunity for finding out whether you can learn to regard me with a still warmer feeling. I love you, and know of no reason why I should not tell you so. It is too much perhaps to ask you whether you think you can learn to care for me in time to come. Ido ask whether you can hold out to me any promise, however faint, that I may one day hope to make you my wife?’ * You are very kind, Mr Rivers, very kind indeed.’

‘ One is kind to one’s horse or one’s dog, Emilia.’

She looked up, and ha saw that her eyes were wet.

‘You are both noble and generous,’she said fervently ‘ No, no,’ he said with a pained look. ‘lndeed you must not talk in that way,’ ‘ What shall I say then ? Shall I ask you whether you, a man of fortune, a man of family, a man who has seen the world, have duly weighed the full meaning of your words, have duly considered all you would sacrifice, all that you must inevitably lose, if you take for your wife the governess of your sister-in-law’s children ?’ ‘ I should lose nothing that any man of sense would care a straw for, and I should gain what to me would bo the dearest treasure on earth.’

She looked at him with still suffused eyes, but with a half-smile.

‘You talk as wildly as any boy oE eighteen, ’ she said softly. ‘ Call my wildness sincerity, and then you will be right.’ ‘ h'ince ity before marriage often becomes near akin to regret after marriage,’ ‘ Can you doubt that I love you, Emilia ?’ ‘ I do not doubt you—l will not doubt you !’ she said earnestly. Rut think what the world would say—think I’ ‘ I have thought; but such considerations have no weight with me I am old enough fco choose for myself; and 1 should Indeed

be a fool to miss any one chance of happiness because Mrs Grundy may choo B e to frown at me,' There wag a pause which Garold was the first break. ‘And now that your objections have been categorically disposed of/ he said, ‘ I must revert to the t oint from which I started. Will you take me for better, for worse ? Will you take me with all my imperfections on my head, and give mo a husband’s right to love and cherish you ?’ He held out his hand, thinking perhaps, from what had gone before, that she would not refuse to take it. But she sat with her hands folded across her lap, and made no answering sign. ‘My darling, will you not speak to me?’ he said at last.

She reused herself with a sigh and turned her eyes full upon him : * 0 Mr Rivers, I hardly k'ow what to uay !’ ‘.Say that which your heart prompts you to say—neither more or less.’ ‘ But I hardly know what that is. I respect and esteem you very much indeed. No one who knows you as I know you could help doing that,’ ‘ But I want more than respect and esteem, Emilia—far more than that/ * Whether out of that esteem, and encouraged by your words, any warmer feeling would ever grow is more than I can tell. Possibly it might, were I to allow it to do so ; but that would simply be madness on my part/ ‘Madness, Emilia 1’ Why should it be that V * Listen, and I Will tell you.’ She was silent for a few moments, as if debating something in her own mind, Harold did not interrupt her. ‘1 am going to reveal to you the one secret of my life/she said at last, ‘My name is not Miss Deane. I have been married already. lam a widow, and I have One little daughter, who is nearly five years old/ To say that for the moment Harold was stunned is to say no more than the truth. It is not a pleasant surprise to find that the woman with whom you have fallen in love has previously been joined in the closest of bonds with some one else, oven though that some one be now dead. Had Harold Rivers known from the first that Mrs Deane was a widow, that fact would certainly'not have kept him from loving her, and loving her just as well; only there would have been a slightly different feeling mixed with his love. As it was, the news came npoa him with all the effect ot an unpleasant surprise, It was like the shock of a shower-bath when one least expects it. ‘ I wish I had known it from the first/ was all he could say to himself as he sat staring into the fire—‘l wish I had known it from the first,’

(To ho continued,. )