LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1671, 28 June 1879, Page 3

LITERATURE.

HER BLUE-EYED ROY. [From “Harper’s Weekly.”] ( Concluded. ) * Cherry,’ suggested Mrs Dnsenberry. Adding, in a sprightly manner, ‘ Captain, if you desert me for this enchantress. I’ll never forgive you, ‘to the great astonishment of the honest captain, who had not exchanged throe sentences with the lady, and indeed had never seen her until this very July afternoon ‘ Well,’ said Mrs Spooner, changing a ring from the forefinger of her right hand to the forefinger of her left, ‘we must all be very kind to her. I sympathise with her with all my heart about her child. I know how I’d feel it I lost you, Isabella.’ ‘My babelet sweet!’ murmured ■ Mrs Dnsenberry, fixing her peculiar eyes on her friend, on which the gawky youth at her side dropped the - fan and burst into a loud guffaw. ‘ Hush 1’ cried 'Miss Isabella; ‘ here she is.’

And up the garden walk tripped a slight girlish-looking woman, dressed in a bluegrey silk, with Gainsborough hat, from which floated a long black ostrich plume, coquettiahly set on the back of her head Her pale yellow hair being in babyish curls about her snow-white brow, and she raised a pair of yellow-brown eyes to the group on the verandah.

Miss Spooner, with astonishing 'quioknos, considering how stout she was, ran down the steps and caught her friend in her arms. ‘ You darling ?’ she said with enthusiasm, sweet poem, “ A Mother’s Wail.” Welcome to the homestead.’ ‘ How beautiful it is/ said the little woman, clasping daintily kidded hands, and speaking in a low, clear voice, perfectly audible to tho listeners above, as she turned towards tho river. ‘That glimpse of the water ! tho grand old trees ! the fragrance of the air ! and ’—raising her beautiful eyes—- ‘ the glorious sky, so like ’ —with a catch in her breath— 1 so like the eyes of my lost, my darling boy. ’ In less than a week every man in that house was more or less in love with Mrs Montgomery Montague—the captain, the pork-merchant, the old clerks, and the young clerks. And the women —well, tho women didn’t like her as well as they did before she came. ‘ She’s pretty enough and clever enough,’ said Mrs Dnsenberry, ‘but I, for one, am getting tired of her blue-eyed boy. As I said in a letter of mine to a distinguished literary gentleman —immediately upon reading it he enrolled himself among my band of admirers—“l have lost children, lost them in the grave, but I never bring my shadows to cloud the sunshine of my friends.” ’ And, to do her justice, she never did. On the contrary, eo uncommonly did eHe bear

her bereavements that one could scarcely believe she had ever beei? bereaved.

But to go back to the pretty poet’s lovers. Captain Hottop was the rr/JBt devoted of them all. He had never been ift love before, a-id love, like scarlet fever, is s most seriom complaint when contracted late fh'life. Ho followed Mrs Montague around lilAi'a faithful, loving slave, carrying a heavy sMkwl to spread on the grass when she chose to sit beneath the trees, and a large umbrella to shield her from the sun when it was her pleasure to ramble along the road. Ho natned-'Mis sail boat Lilian after her, bought a pony and pbaffon and placed them at her service, swung her for hours in the hammock which hung in the orchard, and listened with patient, heartfelt sympathy to her longings for her blue-eyed boy. 'Blessed if it ain’t too bad 1’ said he one day (they were sitting beneath the catalpa trees), as the little widow pressed her lace handkerchief to her eyes to dry the tears that sprung to them just after she had remarked that the twittering cf the dear little birds was so like a baby’s voice—- * darned’ if it ain’t ! Couldn’t you git him away from the folks ? ’Pears to me I couldn’t refuse you anything when you clasp your hands and look at me with tears in your eyes.’ •Oh, Captain,’ sobbed the sorrowing mother, 1 there are very few people in the world like you—very few. You a r e one in a thousand —yes, five thousand. But I never had a chance to appeal to them personally. 1 was very ill when—when they took my darling away ; and letters, with no mat'er how much feeling we write them, are so cold.’

* Why don’t you try personally, then ?' asked the captain, swinging her dainty parasol about, to the imminent danger of the delicately carved handle. She blushed, cast down her yellow-brown eyes, raised them again, looked him in the face like a child, and resolved to tell the truth, however painful it.might be, and said, ‘ I have no money wherewith to pay my passage to England. Understand mo, I would willingly, most willingly, be a steerage passenger, a stewardess, anything—anything to bring me nearer my child. But coming to them, save as befitted the wife of their son and brother, mj husband’s proud family would certainly disown me, and I should be alone in a strange land more heartsick than ever.’

‘ Well, if the want of money’s all,’ cried her honest lover, ‘ that’s easily settled. I’ll give you the money to go in bang-up style, and— ’

But here he stopped in amazement, for Mrs Montgomery Montague had risen from her seat and drawn her small figure to its fullest height. ‘ Sir, do not insult me,’ she said, with trembling lips. ‘ Insult you, ’ cried the captain, springing to his feet— ‘ insult you, my dear little woman 1 I never dreamed of such a thing. ’ • Bat you offended me—money,’ she stammered.

* And I was about offering you my hand and heart—that’s the way they put in the love stories, don’t they ? Will you marry me, Lillian, and then if you choose we’ll go together for the boy.’ * Generous man !’ said the widow, a tear stealing down her pretty cheek, ‘ But don’t you see—that would never do ? I could never plead for my child as the wife of Capt. Hottop. It must be as the widow of Montgomery Montague.’ * Blessed if you ain’t right, ’ exclaimed the captain, looking at her admiringly. ‘ Well, promise to marry me when you return. Do. Lilian. No one could love you better than I.’ ‘ When I return ?’

‘Yes, for surely my promised wife can accept part of the fortune that will be hers when she is really my wife, without anybody —Darn it! nobody need know. Will you, Lilian ?’

* I will,’ she said. ‘ Will what, my precious ?’ ha asked, smiling. ‘Everything,’ she answered, and turned and fled like a bashful girl, after he had clasped her in his arms and given her a kiss in true sailor fashion.

And by the very next steamer Mrs Montgomery Montague started for England, with a valuable aolltaira diamond engagement ring glittering on the pretty hand, a cheque for 500 dols. in her silver portmonnaie, and many useful and ornamental farewell gifts from the ladies of the Spooner household. The ladies felt all their old interest in her revive, now that she had gone away indeed, as Mrs Dusenberry informed the eighty-year-old grandfather of the youth who fanned her on the afternoon of Mrs Montague’s arrival. * She was much too lovely, and made me quite jealous of you, you false man.’

And Isabella Spooner hung the picture of young Montgomery, ‘ that babelet fair,’ in the parlor, and wreathed it with daisies. ‘ Heaven grant that we may see the darling himself soon,’ she said, with piteous emphasis. But they never did. For a couple of weeks after the widow’s departure, Wellington Ootoper burst in upon them all as they were playing croquet on the lawn, scattering the ball in all dirccuoua. ‘ Sold, by gracious !’ shouted ho, ‘ What Y asked Miss Spooner, dropping her mallet.

‘A million tierces of lard, and twice as many pigs, I suppose,’ murmured Mrs Dusenberry, leaning in an unconscious manner against the shoulder of her partner, ‘ She’s a fraud ! Yes,’ continued the pork merchant.

‘ Who ?’ they all cried this time. ‘ The widow, Mrs Montgomery Montague, that is, Maria J. Thompson. Yes s.’

‘Maria J. —Jane I suppose. A sweet name/ said Mrs Dnsenberry. * A fraud, sir ? What do you mean, sir ? what do yon mean ?’ bellowed Hottop, as though through a speaking trumpet, a flush overspreading this weather-bronzed face. ‘Just what I say, Captain. Yes-s/an-swered the pork-merchant. ‘lt ought to be the Ist of April—it ought—for, by jingo, there never was such a sell! The only truth she told was when she said she was a widow of Jack Thompson, a celebrated mince and pumpkin-pie maker in Chicago, I met his brother on the street to-day. He’s a pork-merchant. And she never had any children.’

‘ Not a blue-eyei boy 7’ gasped the captain.

* Not even a blue eyed boy. Yes-s 1’ said Wellington October.