LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1978, 26 June 1880, Page 3

LITERATURE.

LOVE WINS LOVE BACK AGAIST. High up among the Plymouth hills, in the green pasture lands of old Vermont, stood the Dudley homestead, a comfortable red brick mansion, square and old-fashioned, overlooking some three hundred acres of excellent land, all of which belonged to the present representative of the old family, Thornton Dudley, and would descend at his death to his daughter and only child, Alison Di'i'ey, the belle par excellence of the Plymonth hills.

From the end window of the parlor in the homestead shone a steady red glow, the blended light of fire and candle, shining out a heartfelt welcome to the traveller, who was even making his way along the valley road below the farm, with his eyes fixed eagerly upon the beacon light. For this was Snnday evening, the time sacred for the meeting of all faithful lovers, and yonder beside that bright snd heartsome fire the kindled imagination of Bobert Jordan pictured the graceful form of his future bride.

He saw her sitting there gazing pensively down into the leaping flames, her ear strained to catch the fir.st sound of his footstep, her heart filled with tender thoughts of him, and of the happy home which they should one day share together. And if between the lovely vision and himself rose another face, quite as fair, perhaps, but far more pale and wan, and worn with Sorrow —if a voice, oace dear, seemed saying, forever, ' Over my grave you must clasp hands with her' —if the cry of a helpless infant, and the low, desperate moan of a deserted wife and mother followed and haunted him, it was but for a time. With an effort he shook off disagreeable memories, and turned to the steep hill again. ' The Divorce Court will settle all this next week. It was a terrible mistake for both of us. She suffers most. I suppose, at least, now. But I mean to do well by her, and by the child, when once the bother of this Court is over. Then, we can both begin life afresh, for Cathy is a pretty girl still, in spite of ihe two-year-old boy. No doubt she will make a good match before another year has gone by. While I shall certainly be happy—' happy as the day is long,' as the saying is—with a rich father-in-law iu the background, and sweet Alison Dudley for my second wife.' He was indeed young te be talking of a " second wife." Married at nineteen, he had tired of and deserted his pretty, giddy, sixteen-year-old wife, a few weeks after their first child was born. By hinted suspicions of distrust, he had so irritated his wife that she had applied for a divorce, in a moment of anger, on the ground of his desertion. Two years had passed by. Neither had looked upon the other's face again. But the divorce was not yet procured. One legal delay after another had hindered its progress, and until this autumn he had scarcely dared consider himself free to woo or win sweet Alison Dudley. But now in a very few weeks he would be free. He had been married in the State of New Ycrk, where Cathy, his wife, still resided. His present place of residence was unknown to Cathy, as he mipposed. Alison Dudley had never heard of her, and did not know, even yet, that he had been a husband and a father before he met her among the Green Mountain hills. So best ! Only let him call Alison his wife, and then the long and carefully kept secret might leak out as soon as it pleased. But if she should chance to hear of it new, before our wedding day, no one knew better than Bobert Jordan that such a day, with him for the bridegroom, would never dawn on earth. Up in the square parlor, and before the fire, just as he had pictured her as he hurried along, sat Alison Dudley, on that brisk, chill autumn evening. And yet not just as he had pictured her. For a rosy, sturdy infant lay on her lap, chuckling good-humoredly, and holding its pink toes out to the blaze. And beside Alison sat a slender, graceful woman, whose pretty face was very sad, whose low, sweet voice, as she talked, seemed full of tears. ' Say no more,' exclaimed Alison, suddenly rising ro her feet, with a hot blush spreading over her whole face. 'Of _ course, I have no longer any claim upon him, and he is here.' Swiftly she led the woman to a small bedroom behind the parlor, and placed the infant In her arms. As she closed the door upon them her lover was in the room, ' I saw your light the moment I turned into the valley road, my darling,' he said, drawing near to salute her with a kiss.

To his great astonishment, Alison drew back hastily from his proffered embrace. His guilty conscience npbraided him at once. Had she head anything ? He tried to take her hand. It was instantly snatched away. •What is wrong, Alison? he asked, gravely. ' Everything,' she murmured hysterically. ' Ob, Robert, how could you deceive me so?' and she ran out of the room, bursting into tears and sobs as she went. While the young man stared after her, perplexed and afraid, his hand was taken and kissed by some one who was now kneeling at his side. ' Bobert!' said a low sweet voice that he remembered only too well. 'Bobert, what have I done ? What did I do that made you doubt me so at the first ? I was too young to marry, I know, and I was too giddy to become your wife. But never, even in thought, have I wronged you. Never was I anything but your own true wife. And I loved you. Robert —oh, I loved you even when I was so angry with you that I applied for the divorce. They told me that you regretted our marriage; that you longed to be free ; and I was too proud to stay wiih yon if you did not love me. I have really meant to leave you all this time, Bobert. But when I heard about Miss Dudley—oh, I could not bear that! I knew then, at once, that I should die if you left me for her. Bobert, you won't do it—you can't do it! lam your wife, and I love you. I have come to ask you to take me back.' There was a long silence. Cathy wept silently, still holding her husband's hand. Bnt he stared moodily into the fire, like one dazed with a sudden surprise. ' you applied for the divorce yourself,' he said, at last. * But you drove me to it, Robert. You know you drove me to it when you left me and baby so cruelly. And it musn't go on any longer. I cannot give you uo.' She gazed anxiouily into his half-averted face, and then rose from her knees, and going into the bedroom, returned, with her child in her arms. The baby, just awakened from a sound sleep, looked round with wide open blue eyes, aad flushed cheeks, and roßy lips, beating the air proudly with his clenched fist until he caught sight of the moody figure bending over the hearth. He knit his flaxen brows, gravely considering it, then looked in his mother's face, with a crow of delight, and called out loudly,

'Papa, papa!' For weeks past she had been trying to teach him to say that word in vain, aB she believed. Hearing if. now, for the first time, from those innocent lips, she burßt into tears again. ' Papa, papa!' cried the baby, gleefully, and reaohing down from his mother's arms, he laid his soft hand upon the head of the young man, and thf a patted his cheek, •For his sake, Robert, if not for mine, come baok to us,' sobbed the poor yonng The stubborn heart melted beneath the baby's caress, and her own imploring tone. ' God forgive me! I have been very cruel to Catbv, but I'll try and make it up to

you and the boy hereafter,' said the young man, as he rose and gathered wife and child to his heart in a fond embrace. Not long did they linger in the Dudley mansion after their reunion. That same evening saw the wife and child established in the comfortable house far down the valley, where Bobert Jordan had dwelt so long alone. And when the "nine days'wonder" was fairly over, the whole neighborhood rallied loyally aronnd the still girlish wife, and gave her a kind and friendly welcome, that she can never forget till her dying day. It is six-and -twenty years since this trne story was lived through by its different characters, among the fair Plymouth hiils. I heard the tale in my childhood, and it was recalled to my mind this day by seeing in a lozal paper the announcement of the marriage of "Bobert Jordcn, junior, to Catherine, the only daughter of Truman and Alison Dudley, all of Plymouth." Thus, in the secund generation the wound has been healed, the old wrong has righted itself. Bat Alison Dudley, who hai been the happy wife of her Gout in Tram an for nearly five-and-twenty years, would only Bmile today if I should speak of that old romance before her, for she has ectirely forgotten that she ever loved another than her own husband, I think. Bat if I should speak of it to Cathy, the wife of Bobert Jordan, I know well how fondly she would look at her " good man " beside the fire, snd how Eoftly the would whisper the one motto of her life—" Love wins love baok again !"