LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1814, 13 December 1879, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE DAT YOU’LL DO WITHOUT ME. Chapter I. The day was full of sweetness and light, the glory and warmth that only summer can shed over and extract from the land. Down to the left of the verdure-covered old Vicarage-house where the chief action of the story I am relating took place—broad meadow-lands lay bathed in a purple hazs—-pu-ple haze that spoke of intense heat in the open air, and that made even the self absorbed young pair under the trees on the lawn grateful for the shelter afforded them. Any one who had seen them there would have seen the naturalness of such selfabsorption, and at the same time have felt sorry for it. For though the dawning liking b. tween them was ‘ natural,’ it was not fit. The girl was the third daughter of a poor country parson, who eked out a slender professional income by taking pupils. The boy war the highly-prized son of a noble house. And still they were allowed to be together. Tho young fellow of seventeen, though he had not come to his fall heiitage of man’y beauty yet, was a very worthy idol, so far as appearances went, for a young girl to set up and worship. Ho had the slender, clearly defined deiicate form and features, that belong to the handsomest race in the world—the .English aristocracy. Thero was a look cf ‘ breed ’ about bim that was unmistakeable—that look that is never seen unless blood and culture have aided in producing it. What wonder, then, that May Baron contrasted him with the well-to do young farmers in her father’s parish ; and having done that, erected an altar in her heart, whereon she worshipped Lionel Hastings unceasingly. She was supremely happy this morning, for her mother had given her a ha'f-holiday to dispose of as she pleased. That excellent mother, on household cares intent, quite believed that she would go off for a stroll in tho woods with some girlfr cad, as it had boon her wont to do from her childhood. But Lionel magnificently ordered her to ‘ stay and read poetry to him under the weeping-willow,’ and she was only too pleased to obey him. Tho sunbeams fell down like scattered gold through tho leaves, fell down flicker ingly on tho two young heads —tho boy’s c >vered with crisp curls of dark brown ; the girl’s crowned with such golden tresses as only fall to the lot of ono woman in a thousand. Tbs masculine head reposed comfortably cn tho boy’s own folded arms. The feminine one was bent down over a volume —a collection of miscellaneous poetry-from which she was reading lines and verses at random. ‘ This is very jolly,’ Lionel said languidly, for tho heat was subduing him. His only reason for speaking at all was that May had kept her violet eyes cast down on her book for a long time, and he liked to look at them often. He had his ‘taste’s desire’ atones. Without a moment’s tantalising delay she lifted her silken fringes obediently, and bent her honestly adoring gaze upon him, aa she said, sympathetically: ‘Yes, isn’t it? |No lessons, and such sunshine 1 ’

‘And you so jolly pretty,’ he cut in, with a vast increase of energy. Then ho withdrew one arm from under hla head, and flung it round her slender waist—slender certainly, for though May was sixteen, she was symmetrically and perfectly formed. ‘Now, you may go on reading ’ the young sultan said, as May acknowledged hia caress by saying: ‘Oh, dear Lionel!’ A rosy colour flu-hed the girl a face. The thought that perhaps she ought not to let Lionel Hastings treat her as he might hia sisters crossed her mind and clouded her happines for an instant. Then, in her purity and innocence, she blamed herself for even that thought, condemning it to herself aa ‘dreadful ’ Then in her contusion she began reading at random, selecting by chance the very poem she ought not to have selected. It was an American written by an anonymous author, and deserves to bo more widely known than it is. One verse ran thus : ‘‘You call me true and tender names, And gently twine my tresses ; And all the time my happy heart Beats time to yoar oar. sses. You love mo in your tender way 1 I answer aa you let me: But oh 1 there comes another day— The day that you’ll forget mo! ” Her voice had faltered more than once in the reading, and be had watched her confusion, and enjoyed it with half-langhing malice. Boy as he was, he knew so well what was in this young girl’s heart. He thoroughly understood her sudden shame, and perfectly realised how keenly the dread that he might go away and forget her, out May Baron. 'Look at me, pet!’ he said with sudden authority. ‘ I —l am looking for something else to read,’ she stammered. , Look at me, and confess! Areu’t you sorry you read these lines, they describe your own situation and feelings to a certain degree ? ’ ‘ Lionel, don’t be so rude and cruel.’ He had taken her chin in hia hand, and turned her face toward him. And sho knew that her face was telling the truth, that she loved him much. *My own pet! ’ho said, more softly and serious'y. * I shall never go away and forget yon—trust mo for that.’ Then he reared himself up, and kissed tho little face that was rich with happy blushes now ; and May was well content to believe him, ‘ I shall have you painted hy Millais,’ he said presently, 1} ing back and regarding her critically. * Shall you !’ Sho was alight with pleasure at the way in which bo was assuming the right to direct and manaarn for her in the future. ‘ Who is Millais F Is he any one I ought to know about ?’ ‘ He’s one of the greatest painters alive,’ ho said with reproving gravity. ‘ I don’t know that I shouldn’t put him at the top of the list of English painters, if it weren’t for Leighton’s conflicting claims. Of course, you ought to know about him, pet; only, how should you know about anyone while you’re kept cooped no here !’ Then he went on to tell her that Millais had painted his two sisters, both of whom were great beauties and celebrated hellos, and both of whom were married to p-era of the realm. ‘They were the youngest brides of their respective seasons,’ he added ‘lda was only sixteen.’ ‘Sixteen! my age?’ sho exclaimed in astonishment.

‘Yes. by Jove! you a’-e sixteen. But my sister Ida looked much more of a woman. She had no end of offers ; but my mother knew that St John would come on at the end of the season, so she kept Ida free.’ ‘lt was lucky your sister Ida didn’t care for any of the others,’ she suggested timidly. ‘She did, though. She was an awful goose about a fellow called Brtie Friel; but he hadn’t the needful. The best of it is that he’s St. John’s cousin and introduced St. John to Ida. He thought’—the boy paused, and laughed lightly at the absurdity of it—‘that Ida would win old St. John’s liking, and get him to give Fartio something good ; but Ida won something more than St, John’s liking—she won the title and coronet,’ ‘ And his heart?’ * His heart 1 I don’t know about that; he’s popularly supposed to have lost his heart thirty ye'Srt] ago to ray mother.’ ‘ Then he must be quite old ?’ May questioned in angry surprise. * Tell me, Lionel, is he suite old and gny ?’ ‘Of course he is. He’s fifty, and Ida’s eighteen ’ • Poor thing !’ May ejaculated with honest pity. ‘ Very few people speak of Lady St John as a poor thing ’ I can tell you,’ he said, laughing. ‘ She’s the leader of about the be.-t coterie in London.’ ‘Poor Mr Friel, then,’she then said softly. The boy’s face ch uded. Bartlo Friel is—” Ho stopped himself abruptly. And sho asked with Interest—‘ls what?’ ‘ Never mind ; I can’s tell you, p. t, S .mething you ought not to hear till you’re a fashionable young lady,’ he added, half sncerin-ily ; then he ended by saying—‘ He’s not half such a good fellow as old St. John, after all.’ They were summoned to luncheon soon after this, and May wont in dreamily, her head being full of faint outlines of the romances in real life of which Lionel’s sister Ida was the heroine. The dining • room of the picturesque vicarage was as dreary an apartment as drab furniture and dingy papered walla could make it. Nature had done a great deal for tkc room by thiowing garlands of blush rosis

and French honeysuckle across the lattice windows; and through these floral shades the sunbeams fell in the dancing, graceful way in which sunbeams do p’ay through leaves. But alas 1 all beauty and grace came to an end here. The coarse, crude, timeworn children torn furniture could not ho beautified oven by the sunbeams. Wo are so apt to accuse the mistress of a house of ‘want of taste’ if her surroundings are ugly and stiff and soiled. But how can a woman with an empty purse and full hands drape windows artistically, and polish up her household goods perpetually ? Poor Mrs Baron most certainly had not solved the difficult problem of how this was to be done. She had seen things fade and grow more and more dilapidated year by year, and she had made strenuous efforts to repair them ; but repairing is not replacing, and things had been meagre even at the beginning ; so now it was but small wonder that an air of dull though decent poverty should reign over everything Inside the house. It may be asked—‘But with daughters who were grown up, should tho taste of beautifying, or attempting to beautify, hare been left to tho already overworked mother and manager?’ The answer is simple enough. Tho two elder girls were wearing their way through the world as governesses. And May’s education was incomplete, she being only eixteen. Truth to toll, May had norer troubled her handsome little head about any of these shortcomings of her home, before this awakening day. Bat now when she sat down to luncheon something about tie diuginess of the room struck her as being sordid and utterly inharmonious —utterly out of keeping with the refinement that surrounded .Lionel Hastings like an atmosphere. Her meditations on that subject were put to flight abruptly. Her father spoke in agitated tones—tones which the poor wife knew so well portended fresh anxieties, fresh straggles, fresh combats with poverty ‘ Lionel, I have had a letter from Lady Hastings this morning ; she thinks that the sooner you go to Oxford the better ’ Mr B iron’s voice trembled very obviously. Lionel ‘ going to Oxford ’ meant the direct loss of three hundred a year to the poor overwrought vicar of Batten. It Is needless to recapitulate hero all that was thought and felt and said after the keynote of separation had b en struck. In the midst of the boy’s natural delight at the proposed change, there was a pang of regret at the idea of parting with May. Pleasure and sorrow were delicately blended in his heart, and they filled tho situation with emotional interest, But in May’s heart it was all pure sorrow, nnmixed with ar.y pleasurable sensation at all. Ho was leaving her, going to Oxford ; going to ba ‘ a man ’ going to ‘ begin life j’ and in these facts be found compensation for leaving her. But she only felt that she was losing him. For her there was no compensation either in the present or the future. Lionel was going away. With the bashfulness of a girl’s first love, sbe never once thought of censuring him ever so slightly for not feeling this approaching separation painfully, as she felt it. It was natural, she told herself, that boys should long for and revel in the commencement of their emancipation from tho trammels of their boyhood. Kspecially especially was it natural that Lionel should do so. Light as her father’s rule over the lad was, still it was rule, and Lionel was born to be ‘free,’if ever human being was so. Thus she reasoned and argued against her regret at his going, and went on regretting it just the same. The positive difference which would be necessitated in the household arrangements by the loss of that sura which Lionel represented to her mother never occurred to her. She was too young and loving and thoughtless to cumber herself with domestic cares, or take thought for tho morrow cf domestic life.

It did not occur to Lionet that he ought to say something more definite than he had said to the girl, whose whole horizon was darkened by the thoughts of hia departure. He had meant loyally and lovingly ; and so, when he kissed her on the lips, and put a little gold ring on her finger, he thought he had done all that was needfu 1 . When the time came for him to marry—fellows of his “order” married early—he should marry May, o! course. Meantime it was useless to talk about it And May relied unconsciously upon tho fidelity he did not plead ; but still thought far more impatiently about that ‘ meanwhile’ than he did. At last the day came for them to say good bye, and the boy went out into the world, when a thousand fresh interests sprang up like flowers in his path, making it beautiful. And May went about the old vicarage house and grounds as of old, and found the days very long and eventless now that there was no Lionel to brighten them. Lady Hastings wrote a courteous letter to Mr Baron, thanking him for the care and attention ho had bestowed upon her sou. And Lionel himself wrote a nice note to May during his first term—a note which May prized next to her twisted gold ring; though there was little in it save an account of his feats cu tho river, and of the prowess of a certain well-pedigreed hull dog pup. She answered it with all the frank confidence of a child—all the hearty, loving sympathy of a woman. And then it ended Gradually the old vicarage house and all the occupants of it faded from his mind. Life was full of bright prom'se for him, and he had no time to look hack. He finished his college career with more than credit. Ho was a touch more than clover, and his impetuosity stood him instead of pereevarenoe, and carried him well on the road he had chosen.. By tho lime he was five andtwenty ho had done such good service to Government by the sublety, skill, and energy with which he had carried through a delicate negotiation .abroad, that ‘ overnment recognised his cL.imß munificently, and gave him an important and highly-salaried home appointment. In fact, Lionel Hastings had made his mark, and the mothers of daughters regarded him kindly. The years had flown with him, the eight years that bad passed since he had eaid goodbye to Mary Barcn, and promised never to forget her. But they had not flown with her. {To le continued.)