LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2243, 6 May 1881, Page 3

LITERATURE.

HEARTHRUG FARCES. BIBS TROMPET'S TSLESCOPE. [From "London Society."] {Concluded.) Next morning at twelvo o'clock Mrs Mainwaring Trumpet eat down to her telescope as usual, only the eye that gazed through it bnrned so that it might have melted the glass, In a moment the sank back with a scream. ' Adams ' she cried. ' she's there! ' ' Who, ma'am ?' asked Adams. ' The mtox 1' screamed Mrs Mainwaring Trumpet. ' Lawk, ma'am !' said Adams. Mrs Mainwaring Trumpet applied herself to the telescope for a few minutes, and then burst into another scream. ' He's kneeling before her, Adams!' • Well, I never !' Adams ejaculated ; but her excited mistress heard her not. ' Adams!' screamed Mrs Mainwaring Trumpet, in agonised tones, 'he has got his arm round her neck ! O Adam?, Adams,' cried she, drawing back from the instrument, 'I am going to faint! Hold me up, Adams.'

'Couldn't you see it out first, ma'am,' suggested Adams, ' and faint then, ma'am, when all is over?'

' I will, Adams,' the mistress cried resolutely ; and she began to gaze again. Alas, new disclosures awaited her.

' Adams, are you there—are yon there ?' sho screamed ont. 'He is kiesing her !' 1 My gracious !' Adams exclaimed. ' Well, there's no being up to the men.' 'Once, Adams !' the infuriated lady continued ; ' twice, three times! Again, again ! That's five, isn't it ? Another! Six kisses, Adams; and the last snch a long one !' ' Long or abort is much the same, ma'am,' AdaniH ventured to remark. 'lt is not the same ! ' cried Mrs Mainwaring Trumpet. ■lt makes a 'great deal of difference; bat of course you know nothing about it.' 'No, ma'am,'Adams said ; I have been mercifully preserved.' Adams was thirty-five, brisk, good-look-ing, and had just quarrelled with her eighth beau.

More like Lady Macbeth than ever, Mrs Mainwaring Trumpet stood up, and said, in tones that made even the favorite Adams shake in her shoes, ' The carriage ! ' ' The rectory !' she called ont, in the same thrilling tone, to her coachman, as she stepped into the vehicle, ' I must see Mr Arrowsmith,' she said ts the servant at the rectory. She never asked was he out or in. ' I must see him;' and she strode with avenging Bteps across the hall, and into a small morning room, 'Say that Mrs Mainwaring Trumpet wishes to see him instantly. Instantly ! do you hear ? ' she said to the servant.

1 Yes, ma'am,'the man answered, 'ln a taking she is! ' he remarked, as he went to deliver the message. The infuriated Mrs Mainwaring Trumpet might have heard two or three gasp-like inhalations before the door opened.

She might have seen the faintest remnant of a grin on the rector's lean face as he entered the room. Bnt she saw no emi'e, heard no sound of laughter, she was riding on the whirlwind of her rage, and alive to nothing but the chastisement she must infliot.

' Arthur Arrowamith,' she began, ' you are found out. Walls have ears and windows have eyes. O you perjured man 1' ' They may have,' retorted the rector, who Beemod wonderfully well prepared for the attack ; ' but even if that be so, however curious and interesting the fact may be considered in the light of an unexpected and rather inexplicable phenomenon, still I don't see what it has to say to my being a perjured man.'

' You were seen in this room,' the lady wont on, ' seen when that clock was pointing to twenty-eight minutes past eleven. What was going to happen just then, Arthur Arrowsmith ? '

' I should say the olook waß going to strike the half hour,' the rector answered, with perfect composure ' O you wicked and most shameless man !' cried Mrs Mainwaring Trumpet. 'I could not have believed it, only I saw it with my own eyes.' ' Aided by Dollond's telescope,* remarked the rector.

' Yes, aided by Dollond's telessope ! * his accuser answered. She did not care that the fact was discovered, ' And let us be thankful for any instrument that finds out the baseness of men. Carrying on with that chit of a girl! I declare I could not believed it ! '

' Why should I not carry on. as you call it, with that girl if I please ? ' demanded the clergyman, not the least moved by her vehemence.

' Hear him speak!' she screamed, invoking somo invisible power. ' O Arthur Arrowsmith, to behave so with that white tie round your neck ! ' ' The only thing to be said about the tie round my neck is that there is not quite enough starch in it,' replied the rector. ' That, I take it, is the laundress's fault, not mine.'

' And your gray head !' continued Mrs Mainwaring Trumpet, sweeping forward in her invective, regardless of this flippant interruption. 1 Now as to my head,' the clergyman said, for the first time with a little warmth, ' there is not a gray hair on it.' ' Well, with your bald head, then 1' cried the frenzied Mrs Malnwaring Trumpet. ' With your bald head, to behave so, it's appalling !'

' If I were to behave so without my bald. bead, it certainly would bo Bppalllng,' retorted the rector. • Surely, Mrs Mainwaring Trumpet, you don't moan to say th«t if I wero decapitated my conduct would hi.ve been more becoming ? ' This sardonic mood ho maintained through the interview ; but no euch toyish opposition could siem the rash cf Mrs Mamwaiing Trumpet's wrath. ' You knelt before her ! ' ' Yob ; her shoe-string had coma undone.* ' You put your arms about her neck ! ' ' She asked me to fasten her reek-ribbon. By the way,' the rector ad e I ' what do yen call tlice ribbons that stream down their backo ? A name in jest Follow.me-lads ' Vha;,'s it. She asked me to fasten her follow-me-lsds.' ' Her follow me lads ! ' repeated Mrs Mainv/aring Truoi| et, in a voice that sank into the deepent bass with indignation. ' Well if the earth were to open and swallow me up—But,' she cried, Parting bick to the mtin track of her impeachment, '1 saw more th&n that ; yon kiieed her.' ' As to kissing,' the imperlu-bable rector replied, * that might be the kif-s of peace/ ' Kiss of p;ace, indeed ! ' echoed the scornful d.ime. • A likely story ! Xhe kiss of peace wa3 not piven half-a-dozen at a time. And if the first was a kiss of peace, will you tell me what were the other five ? ' ' I shall auswrr no questions,' replied the rector, seeming to become very grand and dignified all of a sudden. 'O, then, you don't even repeat!' Mra Trumpet went on. And now her last bit of patience vanished. 'You glory in it! Arthur /irrowsmith,' the cried, in a voice which raDg through the room, ' I renounce you ; I cast you off. I would rather marry ynnr coachman than you. We are strangers from this moment and for ever, and I only wish there were witnesses to hear me aay the word 8 ! ' 'Witnesses are here,' the rector said, breaking into a smile, and throwing open the folding-doarß as he spoke * You were not likely to miss much cf Mrs Mainwarlng Trumpet's interesting conversation, were you ? ' ho added, addressing himself to the adjoining room. ifere two ladies sat at luncheon. One was tfco pretty rival, the other Miss Quick. Both ladies seemed trying to suppress their laughter, only the younger one was a little »osy red amidst her amusement. 'Miss Quick you know,'said the rector, now quite calm, ' This is my dead brother's) only child, my adopted daughter ; a dear grod girl;' and he stroked her cheek with a warmth that was pleasant to see, while she grew rosier red than before. Mrs Mainwaring Trumpet, for once in her life, lost her power of speech She stood and gazed, but words would not come, ' Here,' said the rector, drawing his niece's neck ribbon through his ringers, ' here is her follow-me-lads, I tied it smartly, did I not?* ' I have made a mistake,' gasped poor Mra, Mainwaring Trumpet at lact. ' I have made a mistake; I apologise; I withdraw my words. We shall be as we have ever been. I mean,' she rdded, hanging her head a> little, 'as we have been this past two months.' 'No, thank yon,' the rector said; 'yon have renounced me and cast me off. If you pleose, we shall be as we have been for the psst two minutes.' ' What ? Do yon mean that—' Mrs Mainwaring Trumpet could not finish the sentence, ' I mean,' the rector said, drawing himself up and buttoning his coat tight'y round his thin frame, ',that any lady who ttkes telescopic viows cf my private life shall for the remainder of her existence be kept at a telescopic distance from me. From henceforth, Mra Mainwaring Trumpet, distance shall load enchantment to any view of me and my concerns that you may take; and from what I have seen, I am inclined'to think that any enchantment which I may derive from the inspection of yourself will be in a great measure owing to the interposition of the same agreeable medium.' Light broke on Mrs Mainwaring Tmrapot at last. ' I have been ensnared,' she cried more furiously than ever ; ' I have been deceived.* ' Yon have, by yotw own telescope,' the clergyman answered. ' Take my advice, and keep that valuable instrument for the observation of the heavenly bodies, and let other bodies alone ' ' Well,'Mrs Mainwarine Trumpet retorted, with a creditable rally of her spirits, just as she marched out, ' all I can say of my telescope is this, I have not tried it on any heavenly body yet. Good morning to you !' end, with somewhat of a recovery of majesty, she swept from the room. ' Adams,' she said, when she reached her own chamber, ' it's all OTer. We are strangers now. Our lives are parted. Adams, and will run in separate channels to the great ocean.' Adams was not quite equal to this high inctar horlcal flight. ' Broke off, is it, ma'am ? ' she asked. ' Hroken eff,' her mistress said ; ' yes, broken, shattered.' 'Well, ma'am,' Adams said, 'there may be a bleesin' in It You see, ma'am, he was such a very thin gentleman.' Mrs Quick became Mrs Arthur Arrowsmith, and the blooming nieoe lived on at the rectory. The etory of the telescope got abroad, and of course everybody laughed, until at last Mrs Maicwaring Trumpet very wisely resolved to laugh herself. And finally, to show that she feared the ridicule of no human tongue, the doughty dame lent the inst'ument to the local museum ; and there it standi), with a groat ivory plate underneath, bearing this inscription in Boinan capitals— Mrs Trumpet's Telescope,