LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1664, 20 June 1879, Page 3

LITERATURE.

DOOMED. BY ETTA W. PIERCE. Outside, the moon was struggling in a bank of white vapor. A feeble glimmer filled the chamber. Before my eyes were fairly open, I beo*me suddenly and instinctively conscious that some extraordinary presence was near me. I looked, and saw standing at the foot of the bed she who had once possessed the little room-she who had just been laid away in the graveyard across the garden wall—my sister Emily ! She &tood wrapped in white—a strange, luminous white—from head to foot. Cn either fide of her bloodless face hung down her thin, faded hair. One skeleton hand was stretched out to me in an attitude of menace, the other clutched the draperies on her wasted, pulseless bosom. Her eyes—her wild, unearth'y eyes, burning like Jiving coals in their sunken sockets—were fixed upon my face. For I terrible moment I lay, voiceless, motionless, frozen with horror. I tried to shriek, but in vain. Slowly she swayed over the foot of tho bed. Her extended arm moved and pointed to the window. I heard a hollow whisper flutter across my pillow. ' Vou, too are called ! ' I sprang up on my pillow. ' Emily, Emily ? ' I shrieked. Sho waved me away. I saw her fading out before my eyes. I sank back on the white bed consoles^. At last I returned to consciousness, and ran into the passage to knock at Miss Dynock's door. She opened to mo, looking sleepy, Eurprised, and outrageously ugly in undress. 'Good Heaven! what is the matter, Hetty ?' ' I have had a dreadful dream ! ' I gapped. I could not tell her more ; and she let me creep into bed beside her, where, for the rest of tho night, I lay, sleepless, shaking, shuddering. When Philip Kent came next d&y I was lying on a sofa in the old parlor, feverish and ill. He entered the room with Mies T jyncck, and seemed to fill it at once with his kindly presence. •What is the matter with her?' he demanded of tho family doctor, who was just making his exit. 'She has sustained a great shock in her Bxster'a death,' said the doctor, thoughfuHy.

• There's a slight inflammation of the chest, also. Look out for her, Miss Dynock. _ For yon know the stock from which she springs.' Philip Kent came up to my sofa. By daylight he looked to be a handsome, well bred man of thirty, with a brown ekin and a foreign air, both the result of his long residence in the Fast. His face was a little haggard and his eyes blood-shottcn, as if he had pasied a sleepless night. At sight of mo he drew his hand quiekly across his forehead. ' I feel like a man in nightmare,' he cried nut to Miss Dynock. *lt is impossible to believe the thing you tell me. It cannot be!' 'You see a family resemblance, nothing more," she answered, sharply. Choking with silent tears, I put out my hand to him. He took it in both his own and held it fast. ' How sorry I am for you !' said I. ' Aud I for you,' he answered, in a shaken voice. After a few moments he added, ' I was to have been your brother ; still coneider me as such and command me in all things. lam inexpressibly grieved to find you ill.' These were simple words, yet they warmed aud comforted me strangely. He looked around the room then said in a voice firm with sudden conviction : ' You ought not to remain in this house twenty-four hours.' 'This is Hetty's home, Philip!' cried Miss Dynock. She will remain here because she must. She has no shelter 1' He opened the window, and seizing a handful of the rank vines which darkened it, tore them down from the glass. 'Then pull away this rubbish and let in the sun,' he replied. 'lt is plain, Martha, that you have never studied the laws of health. This room is like a tomb. You yourself, Martha, look woefully pinched and faded in this trying atmosphere.' A flash overspread her sallow face; her eyes snapped. 1 Thanks for the compliment! Emily planted those vines with her own hand. t-he trained them with care. I confess I have not the heart to destroy her work.' His hand dropped from the wrecked mass of clusters and tendrils. A spasm overspread his face. He closed the window. 'lt was this place which killed Emily!' he said abruptly. 1 No, it was phthisis,' dryly corrected Miss Dynock ; ' though moping and fretting for you hastened the disease, no doubt.' I lay twisting a loose braid nervously round my hand. I felt as if Emily's, ghost stood at my elbow, impelling me to speak. At last I made a little sign to Philip Kent. 'I want to talk to you of Emily,' I faltered, 'of her death, of what she said, to me iu her last moments, I want to ask you never, never to forget her.' ' And do you think auch a request necessary ?' he said. ' I cannot help it, I am charged to keep you in remembrance. She could not rest in her grave, she said.' And then the memory of the night rushed over me in an overwhelming way, and I broke into hysterio sobs. ' You little fool ?' muttered Miss Dynock. 'I told him all that last night in the graveyard 1 I told him that Emily's absurb jealously begrudged him freedom even after her death. She was supremely selfish always. I told him that it was not the handsome girl of ten years ago we buried yesterday, but an ugly, querulous, worn-out woman whom he would never have recognised.' I was petrified with indignation. Emily had particularly requested that we should not mention her changed looks to her lover. ' How dare you, Miss Dynock V I cried.; 'how dare you ?' ' I always dare to tell the truth/ the then answered. Philip Kent took up his hat and walked out of the house. For three long, weary weeks I lay upon my sofa, suffering no pain but daily growing weaker, The doctor termed my malady a stubborn cold. Philip Kent pronounced it nervous depression, but I knew better —I was called! Ho was very kind in those days—Philip Kent—kinder than any one I had ever known in all my life. His brown face and sonorous voice made, at last, the only brightness of the dismal days. 'lt is all for Emily's sake," said Mar Ilia Dynock. I knew that, but was none the less grateful. Often he begged to caTry me out, but to this Miss Dynock would never consent. From his presence I drew my courage and hope. Miss Dynock and the cottage could suggest no thought to me but of death ; but to Philip Kent I turned as instinctively as some poor, perishing plant to the sun Four week's after Emily's burial I was one night sleeping in my chamber, when the striking of the village clock on the other side of the graveyard awoke me suddenly. With the impression that some one had called my name aloud, I started up. It was there 1 I knew it, even before I turned my eyes to the foot of the bed. For a moment I thought I should never breathe again I looked at it; and it looked back at me. Then it freed me from its ghostly draperies, and pointed through the window to the graveyard without. For one awful moment it stood thus; sight and sense failed me—l fainted. The next day Philip Kent was not allowed to sen me. ' What has happened to her ?' asked the doctor. ' Nothing,' said Miss Dynock. ' Has not she received a fresh shock since yesterday ?' I dropped my white face and was dumb. {To be continued.)