LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1998, 20 July 1880, Page 3

LITERATURE.

A ROSE OF SHARON. 1 (Concluded.) ‘He arrived late this evening,’ the doctor ' resumed. ‘Has come to see about his pro- 1 perty, which has been sadly mismanaged. 1 I met him just now by chance, and he . promised to join us at tea. Ah. there he is !’ as a ring at the door bell announced another visitor. The pallor door opened, and a tall, hand- ’ some man, bronzed and bearded, entered. There were cheery greetings and introductions, and Caroline, as in a dream, heard her j name spoken, and met the clear, calm gaze of eyes which had not looked into hers for ’ ten long years—the same eyes, the same J look, which she remembered as she had last seen them, on that wretched evening when, 1 with Farley by her side, they had passed 1 each other coldly on the street. How vividly it now came back to her in that instant’s greeting! The ten years vanished away as if by magic. The resentment, the pride, the pain, came back to her heart with a sudden pang which surprised herself, and she met his formal greeting more coldly than she would have done than of an entire stranger. She listened as he talked, and thought how much improved he was —how much more dignified and manly he had grown. She heard him reply, to the old doctor’s jocular inquiry, that he had never married —that he had been too busy to think of marrying. And then Mrs Doran would have Miss Dunn put aside her crocheting, and play them something; and Mr Rutherford sat and listened, and occasionally let his eyes rest quietly on the graceful figure and fair womanly face at the piano. At supper, one or two little acts of polite attention, and a few words of formal civility, passed between them, and this was all. Who would ever have dreamed that these two had once been betrothed lovers ? The old doctor’s hobbies were botany and floriculture. In summer his garden, in winter his greenhouse, was the pride of his heart. He had now a rare cactus just bursting into bloom, and of course, his guests must be treated to a sight of it. So together, during the evening, they all repaired to the greenhouse. The wonderful cactus duly admired, the host led them up and down the fragrant alleys, pointing out here and there something particularly rare or beautiful, and chatting meanwhile, in his genial, pleasant way. ‘A strange thing happened a few days since,’ he said, as with a sudden recollection. , I had those upper shelves taken down to be replaced by new, and as the workman was busied in removing them, there fell to my feet, from a crevice, a plant which had been missing for some years. It is the Vise Sempiternis, or Rose of Sharon, a plant which apparently dies when deprived of water, but revives when suppled with it. See, here it is!’ and the doctor held up a little, rough, dry. brown ball, of apparently dead leaves, to the gaze of his guests. ‘ Observe, ’ he said, ‘it is perfectly dry, crisp, and brittle, with no tinge of green on its leaves. You would none of you believe that a particle of life remained in these dry roots and shrunken leaves. It is like a heart in which some dear memery or precious love has apparently died out long ago, under the blight of adverse circumstances, but which nevertheless remains hidden there, in its innermost core, unseen and unsuspected, yet ready tc* bloom afresh at the first touch of the reviving waters. See, my friends ! you shall witness this wonder with your own eyes. ’ The doctor lightly dropped the brown ball into a bowl of water. For an instant it trembled on the surface, its dry, thread-like roots seeming scarcely to touch the water. Then it lay still, and the ashen roots took a brown hue, and slowly reached downward into the reviving element. The crisp, dry leaves gradually uncurled, and revealed a tinge of green at the heart of the plant, i Soon the whole radius of leaves lay spread out, star-shaped, on the water, reaching over the edge of the bowl, glowing with a vivid, i living green, as it thirstily drank In the element which was Us life, i An exclamation of wonder and admiration ; ran around the gazing circle. Two only of ; its number remained silent. One only dared i not lift her eyes, because she felt that i another pair of eyes were fixed upon her. . And yet she would have given worlds to I have known what was the expression of i those eyes. ■ ‘ Ah, my friends, ’ said the doctor, c it is • as I said—the old memory, the old love, , never dies. We may go through life with j hearts that appear shrivelled and dead, but ■ at their core, hidden and buried in the dry • leaves, the old love is living yet. It needs , but a touch to revive it into beauty and - bloom, like my precious Rose of Sharon E here.’

Caroline Dunn slowly raised her eyes They met those that had all this time been fixed upon her. What their look told we cannot describe; but, as the company moved again down the blossoming greenhouse alley these two were the last, walking side by side, silent, yet with hearts that beat as neither had beaten for ten years past. They paused once, only for an instant, as Doctor Doran said ; ' It was just here that my Rose of Sharon slept for ten years, to spring Into bloom again at the touch of the water for which it thirsted.’ And the look which passed between them them, and the instinctive, involuntary meeting of the two hands, were such as that same spot had witnessed > ears before. That time was annihilated, the two were young again; and yet, like the Rosa of Sharon,

how long had their hearts been dried up and thirsting, with the yet living love at their cores! It is to this day a question with Mr and Mrs Rutherford—did the old doetor know or suspect more than ho had appeared to? Had he been an unknown witness to that long-passed, unhappy scene in the greenhouse ? TAKING BOARDERS. ‘lt was a scandal,’ the neighbors said,. ‘ that Miss Delia should bs obliged to take boarders, after all she’d been through ; and heaven knows boarders didn’t help a body to work out her salvation. And so mnch money in the family, too, taking it by small and large. Wasn’t her Uncle Kben, over at Dover, well to do, and not a chick of hia own to care for, except the boy he had adopted, who was no credit to him? It was odd, now, that a man with poor relations should take to a stranger when his own flesh and blood was needy; but sometimes it did seem as if folks had more feeling for others than for their own kith and kin. Then there were cousins in the city forehanded and fashionable, who never were worth a row of pins to Deliv ; and there was her greatuncle John’s widow a-larking on the Continent, a-gatnbling at Baden-Baden, and trying the waters of every mineral spring in the three kingdoms, for no disease under the sun but old age. She’d been known to say that her own folks were too rich already, and probably she would endow some hospital with her property.’ Plainly, wealthy relatives were of no value to Miss Della. To be sure, she had never seen her greataunt since she was a child, when her Uncle John had brought her into their simple life for a month’s visit, with her French maid and dresses, her jewels and fallals, which won the heart of her little name sake. Since then Uncle John’s widow had become a sort of gilded creature, always young and always beautiful; for, though Delia had received little gifts from time to time across the seas for the last fifteen years, she had neither heard or si«a anything of the being who had inspired her youthful imagination, and was quite uncertain if such a person as Mrs John Rogerson was in the land of the living. Dead or alive, she seemed to have made no material difference in Delia’s humdrum life. After having nursed her father through a long illness, Delia found that he had left a heavy mortgage on the homestead, and her mother and herself on the high road to the poor-house unless they should bestir themselves. As her mother was already bedridden, the stirring naturally fell upon Delia, and she advertised for summer headers—‘Good Board iu the Country, by the river side, at seven dollars a week. Large chambers, broad piazzas, fine views, berries and new milk. One mile from the station. ‘ Address ‘Delia Rooekson, ‘ Crofts borough, Maine.’ * Cheap enough,’ commented an elderlylady who happened upon it. ‘ Delia Rogerson. An old maid, I suppose, obliged to look out for herrelf. I’ve a good mind to try her broad piazzas and new milk. H I don’t like them there’ll be no harm done.’ And so Delia’s first boarder arrived—an old lady, with a false front of hair, brown, wrinkled akin, faded eyes, a black alpaca gown, and a hair trunk. Delia made her as welcome as if she had been a duchess ; lighted a wood fire in Mrs Clement’s room, as the night was damp, and brought out her daintiest cup and saucer, with the fadeless old roses wreathing them. * Wonderfully kind,’ reflected Mrs Clement, as she combed out her wisp of grey hair and confided the false front to a box. ‘Wonderful kindness for seven dollars a week. She's new to the trade. She’ll learn better. Human nature doesn’t change with latitudes, hha’ll find it does’nt pay to consider the comfort of a poverty stricken old creature.’ But in spite of her wordly wisdom, Mrs Clement was forced to confess that Della, had begun as she meant to hold ont, though other hoarders came to demand her attention. to multiply her cares. The fret and jar of conflicting tempera, ments under her roof were new experiences to Delia, When Miss Gresome complained of the mosquitoes, with an air as if Alias Rogerson were responsible for their creation; of the flies, as if they were new acquaintances ; of want of appetite, as though Delia had agreed to supply it, along with berries and new milk ; of the weather, as if she had pledged herself there should be no sudden changes to annoy her boarders; of the shabby bouse and its antiquated furniture, ‘too old for comfort and not old enough for fashion’— then Delia denbted If taking boarders was her mission. (To he continued.')