LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1856, 4 February 1880, Page 3

LITERATURE.

MIS 3 BBIGHTKR'S ACADEMY, A TALE CP A WEST E>D FINISHING SCHOOL. (Continued.) ' Not his very last. He only goes for a month a vacation, and he leaves such a jolly substitute—a young man, and unmarried! Didn't old brighter bemoan herself on the score of it!' and Bosa gave a light bound. The entrance of the lady in question scat" tered the group of talkers like a covey of partridges at the first shot of the sportsman. Each one betook herself to the nearest covert, the first pretence for occupation - all, with the exception of Bosalina, who simply vanished from the scene, her disappearance as usual being of that mysterious order that baffled pursuit. The night came, and Mrs Qrabbet with it. She was en«c .raced in Fraulein's iron bed, her grim old head poaed, Meduea-like, on the bolster. Bosalina Bmiled softly era the gas was turned off, and was forthwith preparing for action, when a lig 1 1 forestalled hers, and she saw a tall menacing candle sending up a yellow flame from the duenna's end of the room. ■ O, Mrs Grabbet, reading in bed! ' cried Bosalina, bouncing up. ' It's against the rules. I'll tell Miss Brighter in the morning. M'S Grabbet only scowled. •I sha'n't be able to sleep,' was the next expostulation. 'I never can with a light burning.' * Well, no one requires it of you. Stay awake !' was the reply. • I won t stay awake,' said Bosalina. ' It's you that will have to do that;' and thereupon she turned round on the pi'low. Vfer words were to come terribly true. The duenna would have made a good sick nurss. if strained waWefulne s suffices for the office With her lids wide open, she lay th«re looking and 1 stoning till it seemed as eyes and ears had br >ken from their tens mt-nts and taken up their midway in the chamber. It was tautal sing meanwhile to have it prwdaimed by low breathing* from the opposite bed that h»r companion was enjoying herself as she had proposed. When thiß state of things had lasted f >r some time. Mrs Grabbet thought she might relax a little; bat the Vansiuon to ease was not so readily managed. Her senses, unnaturally overwrought, were on the stretch still. She felt as if she should never sleep again. At length she rose on her elbow, and determined to ext nguish tbe light. feasibly the darkness m'ght have a more soothing effect on her nerves ; but at the moment, directing a last glance toward* the ' object of her surveillance, she caught a

startling gleam from a pair of the blackest of eye?. 'God bless me !' she ejaculated, and the candL stick which she had just grasped gave a sort of death-rattle in her hands. ' What's the matter, Grabbet ?' said a silvery voice from the distance. ' Beading still ? O, won't I tell on yon !' Mrs Grabbet would like to have shale en her till there was not much breath left for speech, but she had to content herae'f with a shake of her own fist instead, the frills of her nightcap bobbing horribly over her forehead the while, and marking each denunciatory motion with her old frame. Thus the night wore on, and it was only when morning appeared, and her tall candle —short enough now—had thrown up ita parting flare with a choked gutteral noise, that Mrs drabbet's head dropped back, her lids shut up, her mouth fell open ; th»t heavy stupor had come on which sneceeds unwontad vigils. There was a great stilness in the room then. Even Bosalina's soft breathings seemed hushed to a more perfect repose. In the pale dawn all wa3 voiceless and at rest. Chatter 11, The morning bell rang out at seven o'clock, and there was a succession of bounds on the bedroom floor af the academy as if some wild dance had commenced. It was a war-danca in some cases. The younger girls, half blinded by sleep, and in terror of the prompt entrance of a surveillante, snatched quickly at the first piece of raiment that came to hand, without, due re gard to the rights of property, and were caught at themselves in return, and shaken till there was not much further danger of drowsiness. In one interior there was a moving picture —moving in the sense of wof ulness—motionless in another. Old Grabbet, with her frilled night-cap awry, her face grayer than a cemetery, her elbows plantec on the dressing-table, and a bony hand on each side of her face, was p»sed in awfnl abstraction. She was gazing fixedly before her, her eyes literally mesmerised by one object in the mom. It was the blank tenantless bed of Rosaline Wi dleigh. At the first bang of the bell the duenna was on her feet ; but a prior feat had outdone her. The sweet and early slumbers of her young charge had prepared her for a prompt awakening. Her garb was gone as well as herself; not a vestige of occupation remained; she had flitted fairy like from the scene. At length, flinging a furbelowed gown around her shoulders, Mrs Grabbet ruthed from the chamber, buret open each door in succession along the corridor, and looked wildly fi r the dark eyes and light form of Kosalina. All started back at her asp ct, for she pansed to give no explanation ; but when the full circuit was made, and in vain, she almost fell flat at the last door. Search elsewhere involved communication with Miss Brighter, who was invariably the first up in the house, and was already parading the rooms below with the eye of a lynx. Once the summoning bell rimer, any for ther delay was, however, impossible. Miss Brighter had a roll call: every governess was cited with her apportioned pupil; and if old Grabbet'a limbs showed symptoms of unsteadiness before, they all but collapsed entirely now, when her turn came. Her tale told. Miss Brighter was calm at first but insisted that the silly jeat should at once be put an end to, and the truant be produced on the scene. With an unwonted relaxation of rule, liberty was conceded to the girls to search ; and quite a musical sound of merriment, and a joyous pattering along parlors and passages, proclaimed their enjoyment of this boon. Presently, however, one and all came back with the same story of uneucoess, and matters grew more serious. Commotion and consternation ensued, and the wild suggestions which eprang up on all sides drove the lady principal almost distracted. Grabbet was seen tearing her hair up and down one of the back passages ; but that didn't help much. Later on, when her incapacity grew more glaring, and she found herself elbowed rather roughly out of the way, she hobbled off to her bedroom, and appeared anon before the lady principal bearing her old tin candlestick in one hand, while with the other she pointed to the bit of charred wick that had burned down in the socket, in proof of her vigils and devotion. 'I didn't sleep a wink, not a blessed wink, the whole night,' she murmured. 'That there light was watched to the last It kept a flaring up into my eyes till they were just blinded.' 'That seems extremely probable,' said Miss Brighter dryly. ' It's a pity Fraulein was laid up,' interposed one of the elder girls, who had rather a spiteful remembrance of some passage with the old duenna; she always knew what she was about.' ' You may say so, when she made off from that room,' retorted Mrs Grabbet sharply. '•Flesh and blood couldn't stand it," were her words to me ; '' no, Mrs Grabbet, not if tbey clothed a second like yourself." It's a spirit that's in it, and none bat one of its own make can match it.' Miss Brighter was too angry and anxious to give audience to snch maunderings ; and, wholly extinguished, Grabbet and her candlestick slunk miserably away. Meanwhiie some twenty pupils remained in the establishment. They could not all be forgotten because of one delinquent; everything could not come to a stand still in deference to a solitary absentee. So Miss Brghter decreed, with a certain rapid resumption of authority. The masters would ba arriving presently. The flow of work mußt go on as usual, if no breath from with out we'e to disturb its current for ever. And breakfast being the first business on hand, the summons to that meal rang out with a peremptory abruptness. Miss Brighter had the advantage of the household here. She had already partaken of this repast in her private room; and once the scattered party had mustered in the dining ha'l, she sought the shelter of her sanctum anew, with a longing for a moment's breathing time to think and resolve. Her face looked » sickly pallor as she sank into a chair, the yellow in her hair partook more largely than ever of green, and she fell iasensibly into something of the picturesque pose adopted by Mrs Grabbet in the dormitosy How Bosalina could have escaped was her engrossing reflection, and the more she poidered on it the more hopeless grew her expression. The academy was a well guarded domicile, warranted of patent construct on an*3 stability. The house, we had better sttte, ' stood on its-own grounds,' as many a g'owing advertisement of Miss Brighter'e had set forth. But the territory was a very limited one—which the advert's 'merit did not add—a mere margin of fiower ground at the front and sides, V/ith a tlat of vegetables in the rear. Around the enclosure wai a wall of considerable height surmounted by a spiked railing, and a back and front entrance were kept rigidly locked day and night. Inquiries already instituted without had resulted in a most emphatic statement from the gardener, who had charge of the grounds, that no young lady had been seen in them that morning. The servants within gave the same testimony as regarded Ro.'alina's presence; so that Miss Brighter had almost t j fall back upon Grabbet's assumption respecting the spiritualistic nature of the fugitive. But this, if it threw any light on the subject, was deoidedly of a lurid character, and might be as fatal to the repntati.n of tin academy as the escape of a pupil Mios Blighter thereupon reused herself, and set to a fresh examination of the premises, aided by one of her most confidential attendants. Ihey were returning with the usual blank facea which had been the most prominent result of the mo-t scrupulous s arch, when they were startled by a loud ring at the front door. Misi Brighter glanced nervously at her wat ih •It is the English master,' she said. 'Wa are an hour late. Ha'tfn, Martha, and let him in, and summon tin junior class to the 1-cture-room. Not a word, fur your life, of what has happened in here !' Mi-8 small eyes blinked exeted y as she spoke. She h&d a good de*-l at stake, and must look out accordingly. A thundertstorm menaced, but it had not broken yet. The sky might possibly clear. th") clouds part, and Bosalina emerge from benpath in aa magical a fashion as she had vanished. Only let matters be close, and all might be safe yet. {To be continued )