LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1670, 27 June 1879, Page 3

LITERATURE.

HER BLUE-EYED BOY. [From “ Harper’s Weekly.”] “ My boy, my boy, ray blue-eyed boy, For thee I sigh, for thee I weep, When others tread tho mazy dance. Or smile in happy dreams and sleep. Torn from these loving arms away, By those who recked not tear or prayer, Ere thou couldtt speak thy mother’s name, My tiny bud, my babelet fair. “ My boy, my boy. my blue-eyed boy, Could I within thy bright eyes gaze, Or have an hour to kiss thee in, ’Twould light up many weary days. But thou art far away from me ; Between us ocean’s billows beat, And I can but thy thy picture kiss. My fairy rose, my babelet sweet.” As Miss Isabella Spooner finished reading those verses, and proceeded to cut them out of the paper they had graced, with a pair of scissors that, in company with a bunch of keys hung from her generous girdle, a murmur of admiration and sympathy arose from her audience. This audience consisted of Isabella’s mother, a tall, thin, psle woman with a great deal of forehead—that is, in regard to height—and very white, wellshaped hands, which looked as though they had been shaped out of lard; Mrs Dusenberry, a lady who looked about five andforty, but who, according to her own calculations, grew young so fast that her friends confidently expected that in a few years she would bo a girl again, with lips so thin that they came near being no lips at all, bnmpy brow, small black, uneven eyes, a nondescript nose, and a figure remarkable for its uaobtruelveness; Captain Hottop, Miss Spooner’s uncle, a hale, hearty, rather handsome man, who had spent most of his life in a sailing vessel; Mr Wellington Octopor, a young pork merchant, callled “Devil-fish,” by those of his companions who had been to the Aquarium, “ because it came so devilish near being Octopus, you know,"with reddish hair, reddish complexion, and no forehead to speak of ; Miss Eugenia Ann Octoper, sister of the pork merchant, a pretty, pert young girl, who came down to breakfast in diamond ear-rings, and talked a great deal about “ style;” and two or three elderly men and three or four young men, who being nobodles, can, of course, only expect mere mention.

It was a lovely day in the last week of July, and these people were gathered together on the broad veranda of tho Spooner homestead (Mrs Spooner took a few Summer boarders for company), and, truth to tell, they could not have been in a pleasanter place. The house, substantially built of gray stone and draped with beautiful wistarias that climbed to the very roof, faced the Delaware river, and the gleam of the water through tho branches of the catalpa frees that stood just outside the garden gate, laden with showy flowers among which the bees were having a rare riot, was a pleasant sight to see. Miss Isabella Spooner, the real mistress of the homestead —her mother’s extreme lassitude rendering her only the nominal one—was a comfortable sentimental old maid, with an obtrusive figure (in which respect she formed a great contrast *to her friend Mrs Dusenberry, light, very light blue eyes, and a snub-nose. She wore her hair brushed back from her forehead—a forehead much like her mama’s—and falling in a curly crop on the back of her neck. In evening dress these curls were always tied with a bit of bright ribbon, which imparted to them quite a juvenile appearance and charm, Miss Isabella doted on poetry, and looked upon all rhymers as ‘ heavenborn.’ In fact, she had an intense respect for and admiraof all persons connected with literature, and was wont to say. ‘ Could I have been pengifted I would have asked no other boon.’ * How very sweet I’ said Mrs Dusenberry, in a soft, too soft voice, as Miss Spoonerj after reading the verses quoted above, took her scissors in hand. ‘ They remind me of some lines I introduced In my first letter to Prof. Ganz at the time I became so interested in the habits of the birds of North America. He said afterward, by the by, that the brightness of that letter absolutely dazzled him.’ Mrs Dusenberry prided herself on her letter writing, and anxious that her talent should not be ‘ hid under a bushel,’ wrote on the subject which she thought would be moat interesting to him, with a hint as to the impreaslon he had made on her susceptible heart, to every man with whom she came contact, as soon as possible after forming bis acquaintance, ‘ And when do you expect her, Isabella ?’ asked Mrs Spooner, lifting her hands, of which she was very proud, from her lap, to regard them more closely, and then listlessly dropping them again. ‘This afternoon, toward evening,’ answered Miss Spooner, taking a letter from her pocket and referring to it, Bho writes : ‘ I hope to arrive just as the sun is beginning to drown in your beautiful river, and the evening star peeps forth as bright— as bright, alas! as tho eyes of my blue-eyed boy.’ How very sweet!’ said Mrs Dusenberry, ‘ it reminds me of a note I received the other day from Dr. Drake, in answer to one I sent him begging him for a copy of his lecture on the ‘'Human skeleton,” ’

* Well, I should say she was right smart. Yes.’ said the young pork merchant, in a nasal voice. ‘Them verses sounded very pretty. I don’t read anything in the news papers but tho lard quotations and hog market reports myself, but I know good po’try when I hear it. And you read firstrate, Miss Bpooner, you do. ‘Yes s.’ ‘ It was nice, ’ said his sister, * bat no better than a friend of mine can do. She can write pomes by the hour, but she don’t print none. She don’t need to, ’cause her pa’s rich She only does it for fun ’ ‘Well, I’m blessed,’ here broke in Captain Hottop, dropping his feet with a bang from tho chair top on which they had been elevated, ‘ if I wouldn’t like to know what this is all about. Who is she ? And who’s tho blue-eyed boy V 1 Why, bless me, you’ve just come, and don’t know, do you, uncle ?’ said Miss Spooner, putting tho “pome” away in her pocket book, and leaning back in her chair, the better to meet tho eyes of the captain. ‘ She’s Mrs Montgomery Montague, a charming young widow, and the blue-eyed boy is her only child —a lovely babe —’ ‘ Babelet,’ corrected Mrs Dusenberry, at the same time playfully flicking tho cheek of a youth at her side, one of the mere-men-tioned, who, in his interest in Miss Spooner’s story had neglected to fan the rival of Mme. de Sevigne, after having been captured and detailed for that duty only five minutes before. ‘And when her husband died,’continued the fair Isabella, ‘ he was the younger son of an aristocratic English family, one of the very highest—intimate with the Queen — and he ran away to this country on a lark,

and bis folks disowned him, because they thought he married below him, though I’ve no doubt she was much too good for him. and ho treated her shockingly, his father sent for the boy, and tore him from his weeping mother’s arms.’ ‘ And recked not tear nor prayer,’ quoted Mrs Dusenberry. ‘ But why did she let them take him ?’ shouted the captain. ‘By heavens ! they couldn’t have tahen him if she’d a held on. Foreigners tearing citizens of the United States from their mothers’ arms. Who ever heard of such a thing before !’ * Well, they didn’t exactly tear him away,’ explained his niece. 'That’s the poetical way of putting it,’ interpolated Mrs Dusenberry. ‘ But she was left almost destitute,’ Miss Spooner went on, and she’s a delicate little thing, and— ’ * Circumstances were too many for fcer,’ suggested the pork merchant. ‘Just so,’ assented his hostess. ‘But, most fortunately, she possesses the gift of song ; and with what her writings bring her in, and the presents which are showered on her wherever she goes—she is such a favorite she manages to get along. I met her at Mrs Blnelighfc’s party last winter, and we took such a fancy to each other right off, and she told mo her story in the conservatory. Young Chandler was there, too, but she didn’t see him ; he was at the other end of the room, behind some tall plants—he was very attentive to her afterwards, and gave her a pearl brae det on her birthday—and I cried till my nose looked like a—’ {To he continued. )