LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2263, 4 July 1881, Page 4

LITERATURE.

A MIDWINTER ROMANCE. ( Concluded .) Carl walked away anathematising himself tor having shown mero personal feeling in what sho had taken for a delicate sense of honour. * What business has a man to prowl round a girl quoting poetry and talkine sentiment ? ’ ho said to himself. Then, still more ashamed for being ungenerous, he ordered a horse and rode to the village in the face of a stinging blast, but came back with the evil demon still uuexorclsod. 1 Will you join our skating party, Mr Gilson ? ’ asked his hostess graciously, from the head of the table that evening. ‘ Wo can’t allow you to refuse, though you were absent whoa the arrangements were made.’ 1 I shall be delighted, of course,’ answered Oarl, mechanically casting a quick glance at the aide of the table where he overheard the professor saying in a low tone to Janet, ‘ Skates ? Allow mo to sharpen them and do what yon would, ho oonld not help feeling half disgusted. ‘lf the man is in love with her, why can’t he behave like a sensible being 1’ he thought. * Why need ho look so pale and woo-begene? She can’t be what I believed her, or she would laugh at him.’

‘Of course I couldn’t trust myself on skates,’ the widow continued. ‘lt would furnish excellent fun for you, I’ve no doubt, but I am not quits generous enough to give you that entertainment. Professor Keller bad extemporised a chair on runners, and two benevolent gentlemen have agreed to push me. If I get chilled and ccmo home early, that must not break np the party. Stay as long as you like, and then come back to a hot supper.’ When they started, Carl took the widow in charge, and at the river fplaced her in the chair which Dwight and Mitchell, her devoted satellites, were eager to push. Then he buckled on his own skates and started off leisurely ; for, by the kind of accident which in some cases passes for fatality, Janet and the professor were just in front of him. He admired her trim, compact figure, and clean graceful strokes, and then lost sight of them among the others. Half-a-hour after, skating into a cove, he heard his own name shouted breathlessly, and, turning, saw Keller In hot pursuit. ‘ I wanted to see you, ’ he panted, as Carl paused. ‘l’ve been making np my mind to ask for advice for some days past. You are a man of honor, and a man of the world, you can tell me what I ought to do.’ ‘ Well, suppose we skate along together,’ said Oarl, surprised at such a headlong address. ‘ But what have you done with Miss Ayres ? ’ 1 Oh, she la with her aunt. Tell me, Qilson ; I must apeak or die. ’ Oarl began to look with amazement at the excited German. * Suppose you loved a woman, the most beautiful in the world, and you heard she was engaged to another man, bat felt all the time yon oonld not give her up ; what weald you do ?’ Carl was silent. ‘Now is year time, old fellow,’ he thought, ‘to prove yourself a man of honor, and let him win her If he can.’ Then, in a husky voice, ‘Do you know she cares for someone else ?' ‘ Herr Gott, no! If I did I should be mad—crazy. They only say so, and she seems —ah, she seems —to prefer him ; and then how osn I intrude myself ? I resolve again and again that I will not trouble her, and then I blame myself that 1 did not.’ ‘ Well,’said Carl, slowly, ‘I should think the one thing to do would be to ask her whether the report is true or not. If it is, you hove no more to say ; if not— ’ A look of relief, visible in the moonlight, came over the professor’s face. *Ah I that is reason, and so simple. Thank you, my friend 1 Igo at once,’ and he darted away. ‘ Well,’ oa'd Carl again, ‘I should call that lunacy on skates; and here.’ as he took his own way down-river rather feebly, ‘ here is idiocy.’ Not far beyond the next corner he saw a figure quietly seated on a log that came through the ice ; it was Janet. He went up to her. ‘ You must get up at once. You will take cold,’ he said, almost roughly. ‘ Why aro you here ?’ * I was only resting. Auntie went home and insisted on my staying; but I think I shall disobey orders and go baok now if you will take off my skates.’ A quick, unreasoning desire came over him to take her away before the professor found her. Before many minutes had elapsed the skates were in his hand, and he was by her side on the road home.

‘ Did yon see the professor, and did he ask your advice 1 ’ she questioned, innocently. * What do you mean ? ’ said Carl, almost stopping short. Oh, you think I know nothing ahont it,’ she went on, with a little arch laugh. ‘ Well, ho came to me first, and I gave him my humble opinion, which ho received with the frank remark, that a man would know what a man ought to do, and he should ask yon. I can guess what you told him, and now, I suppose he has gone to Leonora.’ ‘ Leonora ? Is it she he is raving about ? ’ said Carl, in rather a dazed way. • Certainly. Who did you think it was ? ’ ' You I ’ Oh!’ Two monosyllables, but they expressed so much that as a result Carl instantly put his band over hers and held it there, and Janet did not object, while both hearts beat tumultuously. When they came into the avenue of firs and cypresses he paused, and said, — 4 You advised the professor ; advise me on the same subj ot. If I love, ‘the moat beautiful on earth,’ to quote the professors words, shall I tell her so ? ’ ‘ I think I would,’ answered Janet, hardly above a whisper ; and—he tlid. The skaters came in before midnight, and at the supper table everybody was radiant. The professor drank the health of the universe in the bitter ale it was Mrs GrantFerguson’s whim to have, and Leonora’s face was so alight that Miss Duncan oonld not eat, but only look at her and think what a study she would make—a Helen alive with divine beauty, a glad, lovethrilled Venus. There were two confidences that night—one when the Professor took Carl aside and whispered with emphasis, ‘ I am your friend for life ! You were right, and without your advice and the counsel of that good little Miss Ayres, who has stood my friend through it all, I could not have done it. She loved only mo ; she thought I did rot oaro for her, and so smiled on him while her heart was aching. Ah Ito think I was such a stupid brute as not to know 1 ’ Carl waited until Mrs Grant-Ferguson was alone, and then said, ‘ I want five minutes’ talk with yon, my friend, ’ ‘Only five, then,’ she answered goodnaturedly, holding up her watch, ‘ 3i-.e, it is half-past one.’ ‘lt can be said in three minutes, if you like ; I love Janet, and she has promised to marry me.’ Tnero was never a more entire collapse than Mrs Grant Ferguson’s. Sbe sat down and looked at him with ludicrous amazement, saying only, ‘ Well I never! ’ —a colloquialism that bad been scrupulously denied her lips since Richard Grant’s time. Carl laughed. ‘I am sorry you are surprised. I would have asked permission in due ferm, and you c aid have had the satisfaction of giving your blessing beforehand, but, to tell the truth. Fate got abend of me.’ ‘ But the nrofc seor V , * The professor is engaged to Leonora Humboldt.’ Mrs Grant Ferguson only gosped; then she rallied, and said with resignation, * Well, it is more romantic so than it could have been any other way. Yes, I believe lam glad, and I do hope you’ll bo happy.’ L. K. Brack