LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2284, 28 July 1881, Page 4

LITERATURE.

A TRYING ALTERNATIVE,

LFrom " Time."]

(Concluded.) ' Yot aro eo charming a partner. Beryl, says Horace, as they are resting in a cool, dimly-lighted conservatory after the third waltz, 'no charming a partner, that I want you to consent to dance through life with me. You will, won't you ? We shall get on splendidly together. We were born for one another. You have taught me what real love means, that I will swear to you upon my honor. You are the first woman I have ever met for whom I would willingly, gladly, Sjive up the glorious independence of a bachelor.' The captain for once lesos his Bangfroid, and waxea emotional, almost pathetic. • Can and will you do as much for me ?' he asks ; and then he laughs aloud at the absurdity of hi 9 question. But the laugh is forced, and he really feels too deeply to -affect further carelessness. ' Beryl, I love you with all my heart. Will you love me a little and be my wife, darling ?' Only the belited flowers that have kept their inquisitive eyes open behold the seal with which the bond between the lovers is ratified.

Next morning Captain Coolspur presents himself in Grcsvenor Square, where the Bowager-Countess receives him and his proposal with much oordiality. Beryl's waywardness has begun to trouble the kindhearted lady, and she blesses the man who is ready to relieve hor of all further responsibility In the matter of her unworldly reeolute grandchild. Captain Coolspur's family is of the best, and their poverty is atoned for by his great inheritance. Formal preliminaries ihus satisfactorily arranged, the betrothed couple retire to the library for their first acknowledged tete-a-tete. But while Captain Coolspur was closeted with the Countess, Mrs Glynn Leigh had spoken her mind to her infatuated cousin. * This engagement is preposterous, said the irate widow. ' Coolspur is old enough to be your father, and Is a confirmed bachelor in his habits. Ho smokes from morning until night, and he confided to m« only yesterday that he cannot get on without the snuff-box. When a man arrives at his time of life, he requires a wife who understands the selfish sex, and can make allowances for their weakness. This you will never do.' * We shall see,' says Beryl, laughing, and she hastens away in response to her grandmother's summons. Mrs Leigh's startling remarks have made but little impression on the happy girl. ' Ada is cross and jealous,' is her hasty conclusion; and five minutes later she is seated by her lover's side, and has forgotten all but the fact of their love for one another. But presontly her cousin's words recur to her, for Horace, in a low constrained voice, Bays, ' Beryl, I ought to have told you before, certainly I must eonfeas to you now, that I have two very bad habits. I will promise to give up one for your dear sake; but life would not seem worth living if you deprived me of tobacco altogether.' ' Tobacco ?' cr!e3 Beryl, aghast. ' Yes, darling,' says Horace gloomily. ' I am bound to acknowledge my weakness ; but I have reßolved to make a sacrifice for your dear Bake. It will go hard with me, but I have determined on this concession. You shall decide whether I am to give up this (he produoes hi 3 oigar-case) or snuff. Remember, dear, that in yielding either I pay you the greatest compliment, for it will be a sacrifice.' He speaks humbly, deferentially. He looks into her eyes with such loving pleading in his that her horror is merged in a kind of compassion, ' You smoke—and you take snuff!' she says, with a pretty move of disgust and inoredulity. *lt seems impossible.' ' I hate myself for my weakness,' says he; ■ but long habit has made tobacco as neces> sary to me as the air I breathe. Still I promise to give up half my delight for you. Wnich shall it be V

He is about so produce the cigar-case again. 'O don'Sl' says Beryl, hastily. 'Of course you must never take snuff again. You need scarcely have asked me.' She is much troubled. This beau ideal, this hero of hers, that he should so far demean himself I

He folds her in his arms, he kisses her oheeks, her eyes, her lips, and murmurs the sweetest words the while.

' I am glad to make some sacrifice for your precious Bake,' he says; ' and who knows but you will euro me of all my bad habits, once you are my constant companion ?' ' Indeed I will try,' she says earnestly. Her cousin told her that men were all selfish. Here is certainly an exception to the rule. He has volunteered to make a sacrifice for her sake already; and who knows how^ far she will persuade him in future ? To yield is womanly. ' Perhaps cigars are not quite so dreadful,' she says, after a pause ; ' but snuff! O, I could not bear you to take snuff! How came you to contract such an odious habit, Horace?' He produoes a jewelled snuff-box of gre*t age and value. «Partly through this, my great-grand-father's gift,' he says," and partly as a cure for hay-fever, from whioh I suffered martyrlorn in the Bast.'

' Please put that thing away,' she says, pointing disdainfully to the relic of former generations. ' I swear never to use it again,' says he, and buries it in his breast pocket. ' And you will try to break yourself of smoking too,' won't yon, my dearest V she pleads. 'Of course and of course!' he declares with much fervor. ' Who knows but I shall succeed, when you are always beside me to give me encouragement ?' Beryl Blythe has consented to marry a man old enough to be her father, and who smokes all day long. Wonders will never oease ! So much for the steadfastness of girls and their valuable opinions. Souvent femme varie. But why did aha refuse St. Aubyn, whose age was certainly far more suitable?

' Ah, she will make Coolspur give up hie tobaoco, once theyjare married,'says the men who have wives of their own.

* I doubt it,' says Major Darrell, who has no wife, and who knows his old friend better than the rest.

And yet it seems as if he were mistaken in this instance ; for. once the knot matrimonial is securely tied, Horace certainly smokes less and less.

It is a terrible deprivation to him, but it pleases sweet Beryl bo much. And every cigar he does not smoke is accounted as so glorious) a sacrifice to the heroic martyr. ' You wera quite mistaken about Horjco,' says the young wife triumphantly, as sho confides his unselfishness to her incredulous cousin.

1 You have not been married six months, my dear ; and I was a wife for six years,' says Mrs Leigh, arching her tine eyebrows. ' I know men better than you do, as time will ' Having failod to secure Captain Coolspur for herself, who certainly in all respects would have been a more suitable wife for him, the handsome widow is determined to make Beryl repent of her bargain, and loses no opportunity of reviling husbands iu general, and hinting that Horace is as bad, and certainly quite as deceitful, as are the rest of men.

One evening—it is the anniversary of their wedding-day—the happy, pair (and they certainly aro vary happy still) are sitting at the dinner-table. They have just dined tete a tete. St is chilly in-door and out ; autumn winds are beginning to moan, dying leaves flatter uncomfortably against the window-psne. 'The fire is cheering to-night,' says Horace, placing his wife's armchair close to the fonder, and retiring her tumbler with claret.

' Would yon mind my lighting up before I leave you?' he adds, as he selects a cigar frcm his case.

' Weil, I would rather you did not,' she replies. ' Bat is there a fire in the smokingroom ?'

' I gave no orders,' eayn he. ' I had no i 'rathe day would turn bo ohilly.' ' Then stay and smoke rere, my poor dear,' says Beryl graciously; and she really fiuds the a-oma of the weed far less noxious than sh« had imagined it to be. In fact, she is not qnltu sure that the objects to it at all.'

And how happy Hor*ce looks, aad coay they are, aide by aide, the blazing firo

I in front of them, the cloudlets of dainty ancoto curling about Ms handsome head. Suddenly ho kneels at her feet. 'My dsrling,' ho says, ' I have a terrible c nfession to make ; I wonder if you will ov«ir forgive me ?' 'Nonsense?' saya she, laughing; 'of course I shall forgive yon anything.' Sho idores him, and she speaks sincerely.' ' O Koryl,' saya he, ' I norpetrated a great swindle on yosT I f«e' 1k • C aude Malnotte iu the play ; tor 1 married you under false pretenjes ' ' What ! you are not a prince after all ?' ' No ; and what is more, I never took snuff. You might have insisted on my giving up smoking, had you not thought 1 was sacrificing something far you !' ' Yon are a fraud,' saya she, trying to frown, but laughing instead. ' Accept this peace offering, O queen of my heart !* says he, and ho hancla her the jewelled snuff-box, whioh is filled with bonbons now. Within the gold lid is this legend : 'To her I love better than smoke, and who loves me beat of all.'