LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2210, 26 March 1881, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE MYSTEET OF LORD BRACKB^BURY? 1 A NOVEL. BY AMELIA B. EDWABDS, Author of "Barbara's History'," "Debcnham’s Vow,” &o. (Continued.) Winifred could hardly speak_ for joy. That her lover should serve her friends wageven sweeter to her than if she could haveserved them herself. How happy they would be, and how happy it made her to think of their happiness! Already, in her mind’s eye, she saw the good husband and* wife active, earnest, hopeful, reclaiming the fallen and guiding the footsteps of the weak. Already she saw Mrs Pennefeather released from the drudgery of cheap novel-writing ; tho children provided with a governess ; the overworked father able now and then to take a well-earned holiday 1 Fain would she have written to her friend that very day, that very hour ; but Lancelot bound her over to silence. She must wait till the plans were ready, the ground marked out, and the endowment papers drawn up. All this would take at least a month.

1 There is one other good deed that yon must remember to do for my sake Lancelot; ’ she said, presently. 1 1 want you to befriend poor Lettice Leigh. ’ ‘ What do yon wish me to do for her ?’ ‘Well, to take care of her—to • see that she and her poor little child want neither for food nor firing. That cottage is a mere ruin’ ...

‘ I beg your pardon. Tho cottage is perfectly weatbertight—roof and flooring repaired ; windows glazed and shuttered ; new doors ; new fastenings ; new kitchen range; everything complete aod comfortable.’ ‘ You have done all this ?' * Did you not bid me turn out the ghost and mend the roof; and am I not the Slave of the Lamp!’ * You are my fairy prince—all generosity and goodness ?’ With this they drifted back into the old strain of lovers’ talk; comparing their miniatures ; promising to write by every alternate post; forgetting the hour, the place, and everything bat each other. ‘The features are yours—the eyes, the dear, true eyes, are yours,’ he said, holding the daguerreotype thia way and that, to get it in a favorable light. • And yet, as with all these things, there is a ghostly unlikeness about it. I wonder if I shall ever succeed in making a decent portrait of you 1’ ‘Yon must try, some day,’ she said, smiling. ‘ I have tried, dozens of times—ln chalks, in oils, in wateroolors ; profiles, front faces, three-quarters? I was always trying—and failing. What chance had I when I never had a sitting V * You never asked for one. ’ ‘ I dared not. Yet sometimes I caught a touch of likeness that pleased me—a look of the eyes, perhaps a turn of the head 1 I have an old Shakespeare at home, the margins sorawled all over with you, as Ophelia, as Imogen, Cordelia, Portia, Miranda, You little thought how many Shakespeare heroines you played forme, dearest, in those bygone days I’ The girl looked np at him; and as she looked the tears came to her eyes. ‘ Lancelot,’ she said, ‘yon mast not give up painting. You will never be happy, if you do. It is your vocation. ’ He shook bis head. * I won’t be half an artist, Winifred. Besides, you mnst not forget that if Fortune takes from me with one hand, she bestows Infinitely more upon me with the other. I give up Art; aud I gala—- “ yon.” ’ * But bat if you would have been happier the other way ?’ she said, looking aside. ‘“The other way"—meaning without you whom I have loved from my boyhood ? I could almost say, Winifred, that is unkind. ’ ‘ Yon know I do not mean it unkindly 1 But men are so different to women. Love is the woman’s life—the beginning and end of all her hopes and fears ; but the man’s vocation, the man’s ambition are more to him than love.’ * My vocation, as you call it, is ruled by circumstances over which neither you nor I have any control,’ said Lancelot, gravely. * If I could have chosen —if I could have carved out my destiny, following my heart’s desire, 1 would have been your husband, dear, and a painter ; not very poor, because poverty is disagreeable; not very rich, either, except m love, and hope, and perhaps in fame. And 1 would have lived in Italy ; for Italy is the artist’s paradise, and the land of my earliest recollections. That wonld have been my dream. But it is a dream that oould never have been realised. So long as I was free to ha a painter, an impassable gnlf divided your life from mine ; and' tho change that left yon free made me—what I now am. To sigh after an impossible combination of circumstances would be folly, and worse than folly. lam here with work to do, and the will to do it, and your love to make me happy. Not to be a Raphael or a Titian would I change back to where I was before.'

Winifred said nothing ; but the slight pressure of her hand upon his arm was answer enough. do they a rolled on for some moments In silence ; understanding each other thoroughly, and verry happy. 1 1 have often thought,’ he said presently ; * that fate committed one of her grand mistakes when she disposed of Cuthbart’s lot and mine. Never were two eqnarer men successively wedged into a round hole. Be, poor dear fellow ! cared no more about being a lord than I do. In fact, 1 think it bored him almost more than it bores me* I want to be an artist ; he wanted to be a sailor. A sailor he was, too—a born sailor The tea was his element ; and as for navigation, I don’t believe there was a yachtsman in Europe to equal him, I used to say that no one really knew Cuthbert who hadn’t seen him on board bis own boat in a gale of wind. Did I ever tell you about that storm oil Cape Malapau ? I mean, when I made that trip with him to the lonian Islands five years ago. It came sweeping down the Adriatic and caught ns in the straits of Otranto, half-way between the two coasts. We ran before all the way to Corfu. I shall never forget it or his coolness —his hand on the tiller —his eye on the needle —only a word of command now and then, brief and ringing and stern—and the boat obeying the helm, like a good horse under a good rider. Tou said something just now about a man’s vocation : that was bis vocation—just as Art is mine. "V es ; fate misplaced us both—gave us what other men covet, and withheld from us the things we ourselves coveted. He oared nothing for riches —no more do 1. Politics bored him ; and they bore me. The House of Lords was bis bugbear ; and it is mine. People used to say that he and I were curiously different ; but it seems to me that we were curiously alike. What do you think ?’

‘ I think you were as unlike as any two brothers could well be,’said Winifred, speaking with that painful constraint that always came upon her when the conversation took this turn. * Sou also ? Bat in what way ?’

* In every way.’ ‘No, no—that is too vague, and too sweeping. I know we were alise in some things ; and I only wish, fcr my own sake, that we were alike in more.’

Winifred was silent. What could she say P To her the lost Lord Hrackenhury had always seemed immeasurably older than Lancelot ; and as grave and dry as Lancelot was genial and joyous. She respected him ; she admired him ; she was half afraid of

him—but she could never have loved him. To tell Lancelot this was impossible. ‘ He had ten times more character than I have,’ the young man continued, warming as ho went on ; ‘ more character —more judgment—more determination—more tenacity. He was the sort of fellow who, when ho had made np his mind, never wavered If it had been his duty to fire a mine, ho would hare put on hia. hat, walked in as coolly, and struck bis match as deliberately as if he had been lighting a cigarette.' ‘ I quite believe that,’ said Winifred. ‘ He was ever so much more worthy of you, dear, thsn I am.’ The constrained look wont out of her face

and with a child-like smile, she laid her cheek against his shoulder. 4 Yon shall not disparage my hero,'she said.

The were standing on the landward side of a giant oak which grew ao close to the water a edge that its spreading boughs shadowed the path on the one side and over* hung the water on the other. The stream —an arm of the Isar—eddied swiftly by, hastening to rejoin the river. Not a soul was in sight ; not a sound of the city was audible. They were apparently as much alone as if they had been cast upon a desert Island.

So I anoelot made the only answer that oonld well be made to words so sweet. He kissed her.

Perhaps his eyes looked lingeringly into hers; perhaps their lips met more than once. At all events, it was one of those foolish, fond, delightful moments, so prosaic In prose, so poetio in poetry, when nothing in life seems worth living for, or dying for, but love. Moments so few, so brief, so precious, that it was hard they should be interrupted —by a cough. Chapter L. THEIR FIRST QUARREL. Circumspectly emerging from behind the tree-trunk, the owner of the congh (and a more discreetly modulated congh never proceeded from human lips) discovered only a young lady buttoning her glove, and a young man staring vacantly at the sky. He was an old gentleman, small, shrivelled, brighteyed, with a book under his arm, and a ier ip of ribbon in his button hols. He meet have been standing just at the other side of the big tree, on the very brink of the river ; and being, doubtless, nnwilling to assist unseen at so exceedingly private a conversation had no choice between making his appearance and walking into the water. He smiled—ho would surely have been more than mortal if he oonld have helped it ! But the lovers looked as lovers look when they are caught ; red, and shy, and somewhat indignant. ‘ Et ego in Arcadia vixi,’ said the little old gentleman, lifting his hat, and walking briskly away. For a moment they both were silent. Then Lancelot laughed uncomfortably. •By Jovo! now,’ he ejaculated, ‘who would have dreamed of that aged fossil being stowed away round the corner, like a light-comedy parent behind a screen at the end of the third act. ’ ‘ What did he say ?’ 1 He quoted a Latin line from a picture of Niooio Pousaini’s—‘‘et ego In Arcadia vixi ;’ which means * And I too lived in Arcadia.” I presume he wished to imply that at some remote period in the early history of mankind, he had himself been young, and in love/ * Bow pretty!’ • Well, yea—and aptly quoted. I wonder who he is !’ ‘ Tell me what the picture is like, Lancelot.’

Lancelot wished the old gentleman and his Latinity at the bottom of the sea. Nevertheless he did his best to describe the famous paintingthe shepherds, who have discovered an antique tomb—the kneeling man who reads, tracing the epitaph with his finger—the maiden standing by, with her hand on her lover’s shoulder—the simple awe and wonder in the face of the boy who leans upon his crook, listening—the classic grouping—the clear still sky—the trees and distant mountains, which have a look of belonging to the young days of the world. Winifred listened breathlessly. ' Where is this picture ?’ she asked. * In the Louvre ' ‘ I must be one of the most beautiful pictures in the world I’ * Don’t think that, or when you see it, yon will be disappointed. It is not very beautiful; in fact, it is scarcely to be called beautiful in any sense. But it is purely ideal, purely classical—a Theocrltan idyll on canvas.’ ‘ How many great pictures there are, waiting for me to see them!’ said Winifred. * And for me to show them to you. ’ * And what wonderful places ?’ * To which I will take yon. ’ .Still strolling slowly, they had now come to where a broad road opened down towards the bridge leading to the Baths of Bruntbal; and this was their direct way back to Pastor Krentzmann’s house. But Lancelot made as if he would still keep on through the park. ‘Let us go a little further,’he said. ‘ I have something more to say to yon ; and it is our last walk ! ’ ' But it must be one o'clock.’ *lt is nearly two; and as you may be quite sure that our good friends dined at least one hour ago, yon need not scruple to stay a few minutes longer. ’ ‘ Do you know that we have been out since half-past ten < ’ ‘ And when shall we be out together again ? Not for three months, Winifred, It is a long time to look forward to.’ 1 The time will pass mere quickly for yon than for me,’ she said. *lt is not half so hard to go, as to be left behind.' ‘Are yon so sure of that? To be left behind is to submit to fate, and of the inevitable. To go is like wrenching out one’s own tooth, or pulling the string of a shower-bath. But, dear, it rests with yon to make onr parting many degrees less bitter.’ ‘ With me ! How can I do that ?’ ‘ By promising me that when we next meet, It ihall bo to part no more.’ ■ Are you not coming at Easter ?’ ‘At Easter—if I live and breathe.’ * But—but at Easter ... .it impossible. ’

‘ Why impossible ? ’ ‘ Need yon ask ? —is is only three months hence.'

Then, despite that unlucky episode of the old gentleman and his cough—an episode which, for the moment, seriously imperilled the gravity of the situation Lancelot became elequent with a lover's eloquence. Situated as they two were situated, separated by distance as well as by time, three months were as long to them as three years would be to most others. Why need they wait longer ? Already six weeks had gone by since Miss Langtrey’a death, and by Easter the lapse of time would be nearer to five months than four. By what law of custom, by what scruple of affection, or sorrow, or common-sense was Winifred called upon to defer her marriage beyond that period? For himself, no time could possibly be so convenient as the Faster recess. In the three months now intervening, he would wind up his brother’s affairs and despatch his own arrears of business. The new cottages would meanwhile be’bniU, and the new church be so far advanced that he could safely leave it to he finished in bis absence. Then marrying in April, they would remain abroad through the summer ; or. if she preferred it, they could stay away till her year of mourning should ext ire. Besides, he had promised himself that he would take her to Greece and Italy for their wedding journey ; and for Greece and Italy there was no time like the last of spring and the first of the summer. Should they not take their happiness when the birds take theirs, ‘ln the sweet o’ the year?’ But still she wonid not, ‘lt is too soon,’ she said again. ‘it will be time enough next spring.’ ‘ Next sprit-g! This was too much. ‘ Good heavens ! Winifred,’ he said vehemently, ‘ you cannot be serious ! Life la not long enough tor such proorast.nation. If, like the early Chaldean kings, we had forty-three thousand years of wisdem and usefulness to look forward the thing would be different. Then

I would Lovo yon ten years before the Flood, And you should, if yon pleased, refuse Till the conversion of the Jews ; but unfortunately for as, life has become ridiculous abort since those days. You forget, child, that time is going, that youth is fleeting, that the hours once struck rro past for ever. You forget that we are alone ahiolutely alone in the world—you and I ! Wo have no one to please but each other. Why, then, when Fate no linger dividia us, shall we be so unmindful ot the uncertainties of life as to divide ourselves, besides, who shall say what another yorr may bring forth ? For my own part, I shad nev. r feel really safe till I have put the ring upon your finger,' * What do you m«m by “safe ? ” ’ she said, her cheeks flashing, her eye kindling indignantly. ‘Di yon suppose 1 am incapable of remaining constant for a year ? 1 {To be continued on Tuesday.)

I An old Scotch woman was scolded by the' minister for letting her son swear. “It’* rara wrong, meenistor,” she said ; “ but yon mean alloo that it sets off the conversation michtily.” The doctors say that sealskin is unhealthy. Bless them ! Now, if they can be induced to say the same thing of six-button kids, point lace, and a few such trifles, coming generations of married men will rise up and call them blessed.

We see an article in the papers about boyinventors. We hope they will invent a boy who won't whistle through his fingers and yell on the streets at night.—“ Cincinnati Saturday Night.” Nothing so Jakes the conceit out of the average man sa to order his paper to be discontinued, and then to ste the editor going right along and getting rich without him.

Mark Twain says there is something very fascinating about science—it r ives you such wholesome returns of conjecture for such trifling investments of fact.

“ Why are you so thankful that yon are not married P” asked Mrs H. “ Because I have two sisters who are married,” she said, “ and I have to work not only to support myself and my mother, but to help to support their children.”

“ Now this is what I call business," re* marked a Brooklyn undertaker as an unfortunate gentleman stepped into hir store and died.

The assassination of the Czar of Bcssur, long expected, has at last eventuated; Hack this stubborn and grim, yet plncky old autocrat only accepted my invitation of a few months’ -go to visit me in Christchurch, he> would now be in the enjoyment of life and health—in tho calm retirement and aristocratic seclusion of my little cottage on thi* North, South, East, West belt—and takinghis daily drive or walk to Hay’s- Free Finer Art Exhibition, near the Victoria bridge, to see the beautiful picture prizes and enjoy the company of the amiable and gifted proprietor, and others of the elite of wit, rank, and fashion, whose daily, resort Is Hay’sFree Pine Art Exhibition, for the purpose of purchasing his 2s 6d Art Union Tickets; —[Advt. ]