LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1663, 19 June 1879, Page 3

LITERATURE.

DOOMED. BY ETTA W. PIERCE. The clock in the hall was striking twelve when a knock echoed on my chamber-door. The voice of Miss Dynook fluttered in through the keyhole. ' Get up, Hetty,' it commanded, briefly } 1 your Bister is dying !' I sprang from the bed where, overcome with sorrow and fatigue I had thrown myself, all dressed, an hour before. My he»d was still confused with dreams of the school from which I had just been sum moned. I rubbed my eyes and looked around. Emily's illness and the journey of the" previous clay rushed back to my memory. Alas ! I was at home, ia the old cottage which had once been a parsonage, and outside the moon was shining on the gray stones of the churchyard, where five daughters of the house already slept, and now—now —Emily, the last one left tD me—waa dying ! Miss Dynook entered, her sallow face paler than usual. 'Be calm,' she said ; ' Emily is conscious and wishes to speak to you. Do not disturb her with any outciy.' 1 Why was 1 not sent for before ?' I cried, resentfully. 'lt was my right to be with her—to nurse her. And to think that you never sent for me till yest3rday !' *I acted according to Emily's instructions,' replied Miss Dynock dryly. ' She did not wish you to know of her ilmess. Remember, I was her friend and playfellow before you were born.' 'That may be,' I sobbed, 'but I a~n somethiug nearer yet—her sister, her only one, and you have not treated me fairly, and I will never forgive you !' I broke away and ran to Emily's chamber, and falling on my knees, took up one bloodless hand from the coverlet, and carried it to my hot quivering lips. ' Emily !' I cried ; ' Emily, I am here !' Propped by pillows, she lay, her long hair, grown thin and lustreless from sickness, straggling loose on her shoulders. A faint, rattling breath had superseded her cough At the foot of the bed stood the doctor. The midnight moon shone into the pretty, orderly room, and the night lamp's light fell upon Emily's wasted face, which was full of calm composure. ' Martha Dynock has promised to stay with you, Hetty,' she began. 'You will find her an admirable person. You are but eighteen —too young to live on here alone. Moreover, with such tendencies as you inherit, you can never expect to be strong. Martha is just my age, and she will take my place, and be to you an elder sister.' A soft step crossed the carpet, and Miss Dynock appeared on the other side of the bed.

'You have a message to sand to Philip Kent,' she prompted, as Emily leaned back exhausted on her pillows. I felt the bloodless hand in mine tremble slightly. ' Could I have lived till autumn, Hetty,' said Emily, ' I should have married Philip.' He is on his way from Peking even now, and is likely to arrive here any hoar. You do not remember him, for you were a mere child when he went to the East.' No, I did not remember him, scarcely his name, for Kmily, extremely reticent by nature, had never talked to me of this lover who, for ten long years, had been toiling and broiling in another hemisphere for the future which she, after all, was never to share. 'He does not know that I am ill,'she proceeded. ' He will be utterly unprepared for news of my death. Martha is hia cousin. She must help you to comfort him. He went Eaat for my sake. We were both young, and I was ambitions for Philip. But it was a mistake. These weary years of waiting have shortened my life. And now he will come and you will see him, but I shall be dead. Hetty, Hetty, do not let him forget me !' ' What cm I do ?' T sobbed. ' Anything—anything which will beep me in his memory ! I could not rest in my grave should Philip forget me. Do not tell him that I grew faded and old. Let him think of me as I was ten years ago. I am glad to die before he oomea. Remember, Hetty,' murmured Emily, as the rattling breath in her throat grew fainter and fainter, ' I lay this charge upon your ; do not let him forget me. Do not let him cease to love me.

We buried Emily in that dreary family row. It was an unspeakably gloomy day in the late summer. Mist and rain darkened the sky. The graveyard was full of little pools, in which my feet sank ankle deep as I walked with Miss Dynock after the coffin, and watched it as it was lowered into the sodden earth. The old pastor who had taken my dead father's place in the parish drew me b;ck from the open grave. 'lt is too wet and cold for you here,' he said. ' Take her away, Miss Dynook. She is the last of seven, remember.' Martha Dynock pulled my hand through her arm, and we turned and splashed homeward. I followed Martha Dynock's tall, stiff figure into the musty old parlor, took off my mourning hat and wet overshoes, and Eat down there ■with Rome of the neighbors, who had met to condole with me. 'Hetty,' Baid Deacon Pratt's wife, you see how unßartin' life is. Consumption usually makes a clear sweep through a family. You are just the age your sister Urusilla wis when she died. She was the prettiest girl in the town ; but what of that ? Beauty won't save a body. All ilesh is grass.' ' Miss Dynock must you some boneset tea!' cried another. ' I thought I heard you coughing out there by the grave. Boneset and flaxseed, and a nip of elecampane root, is what you want. All the Fox family drop like overripe fruit.' 'And Emily so near marriage!' put in a third. ' How sad ! There'3 just room for one more grave in the row ; did you notice? Deacon Pratt called my attention to it. Well, we must be resigned, Hetty. Is Martha Dynock going to stay with you 1 She's a dull moping body. I never could understand why Emily was so fond of her. Everybody knows she was in love with her cousin Philip ten yeats ago.' Then they all went away and left me alone with the rain and the gruesome twilight, and my own thoughts. ' And I do not want to die 1 I do not want to die !' I kept sobbing, with . white lips, to myself. Miss Dynock cams in with lights. ' Will you have tea in this room ?' she began to say, when we heard the streetdoor, always left unfastened, open suddenly. A step crossnd the hall. On the threshold of the parlor a man stood, looking in upon us. He stood flushed, hurried and eager. Ho was tall and broad-shouldered, and he had a tawny, outlandish look, a rich russet beard and a pair of supetb blue eyes, the sweetness and kindness of which gave the li3 direct to his reiolute, cold mouth. At the first glance, also, I knew that Emily's lover, stood before U 3. I started up with a cry. ' Philip ! screamed Miss Dynock. f JHe looked, not at her, but at me. Before either of us could speak he strf.de across the room, opened his arms, and snatched me passionately to br's breast. 'Emily, my darling! my darling!" he cried, in a voice quivering with love and joy unutterable ; and he bent his tall, fair head and kifsed me on the mouth. Shall I ever forget that strange, terrible moment, that wild caress which was meant for the dead, fell on my dumb and unresisting lips ? I pushed him from me. I looked up frightened and horrified into his bendiug face. ' Stop !' I cried, 'I am not Emily ; lam Hetty. You come too late. Emily is—is—oh, tell him !' I sobbed, turning to Martha Dynock ; • tell him, I cannot!' Martha Dynock rushed towards us with a ruffled, yes, enraged mir. 'How d'ye do, Philip?' she burst out sharply. 'Have you quite forgotten me? You come to a Bad house. Emily Fox was buried to-day. Hetty and I have just returned from her funeral!' He stood for a moment, then reeled back a step and fell into the nearest chair. I could not look at him. I ran to a corner of the room, and crouched down there and hid my face ' Dead !' he cried out, wildly. 'Yes,' said Miss Dynock. ' She breathed her last three days ago, of consumption. I could never get her to write to you of her failing health. She did not want you to know it. She would not acknowledge it to anyone. I was her nurse and companion, and I am to live here henceforth with Hetty. You remember Hetty? She was a child when you went away.' Ha sat like a man utterly overwhelmed. ' Dead 1' I heard him mutter, for the second time, as if he did not comprehend the word. Martha Dynock stood in the centre of the room and watched h!m with strange, gloating eyes. I knew not how long the awful silence remained unbroken, but at last he staggered to hia feet, with a face like death. ' Where have you buried her ?' he groaned. 'Come, and [ will show you,' said Martha Dynock; and she snatched up a shawl and flung it over her head, and they started out together I saw them cross the garden and enter the grave-yard. The gate creaked behind them, then all was still. ' God pity him !' I cried, from my full heart. At the end of an hour Miss Dynock came back, dripping ani alone. ' Where ie he V I asked. ' Out there —with her,' she answerod, shrugging her shoulders. ' Oh, Miss Dynock !' Don't be alarmed. His heart will not break, A man'd grief is rsrely lasting. Come, let us have our tea.' I slept in Emily's room that nighl. It was a morbid fancy of mine, no doubt, but I seemed to be nearer to her there than elsswhere. In the wardrobe were her dresses. Her writing-desk, full of Philip Kent's letters, stood in a corner of the room. Over it hung a portrait. I went up to it, and looked sadly into the pictured eyes. ' Oh, Emily, dear,, I said, ' how I wish that you could come back and comfoit Philip Kent! Did you lovo him very much ? Yes yea; for you could not heip it. Where ara you to-aight ? Do you know how utterly lonely and desolate we two are—he out yonder by your grave, I, here in your foresaken room ?' ' Good night,' called Miss Dynock, dryly, as she passed the door at that moment. I 'put out my candle, crawled into the white bed, and, overcome with fatigue and sorrow, fell asleep. I dreamed of Emily and of Philip Kent. About the middle of the night I woke, {To be continued.)