LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2352, 17 October 1881, Page 4

LITERATURE.

FOB LOVE OF HIM. 4 I,’ said Haddie Winstaaly, piteously, 4 I a burden to my husband? Oh, Sarella! Sarella 1 for pity’s sake, don’t say that!’ It was the day following the family hegira —that most dismal, doleful and intolerable of days, when the furniture was piled up in the echoing and nnoarpeted rooms, the pic tnres turned blankly with their faces to the walls, the yawning obimney-pleces destitute of crackling flames, while the dreary spring rain beat against the windows with a mournful and monotonous sound. At the back of the little farmhouse the gnarled apple trees were striving to break out into bud and blossom, and a few faintcolored spring flowers lifted their golden heads above the grass and dead leaves, while at the front the restless billows of the Atlantic, tortured by the moaning wind, flung their fringes of foam high np on the shores, flights of sea birds eddied overhead, and the low banging reach of leaden clouds shut out the misty shimmer of the horizon.

Haddie had wandered about the honae all day wrapped In a shawl, looking about as forlorn as the daffodils and jonquils outside, in the vain endeavor to find soma habitable nook or corner where she could pore over her book. She felt herself ill-used in the extremeat degree, this annoy haired, rose-lipped human fairy, in all that was not made smooth and easy to her little feet. She had married Carlos Winstanley scarcely throe months ago, supposing that she was entering into a hnman Eden through the golden circlet of the wedding ring and the bowery arches of the orange blossoms ; and here, lo and behold he had failed ; the pretty little house in Park Terrace had been sold, with its antique furniture, its bric-a-brao and rose-lined curtains, and hare they were banished for the rest of their Kves to the dismal one-storied farmhouse, the sole rolio of Carlos Winstanly’s scattered fortunes ! 4 It isn’t like a city house,’ said the young man, cheerily ; but I’ve always had a sort of loving for a farm life, and we can be just as happy here as if it were a palace—caa’t we, Haddie ? ’ And Haddio, with a half • frightened glance at the restless wares of the Atlantic I and the groups of cedars writhing in the blast clung to hie shoulder and whispered : 4 Yes. But,’ she added, with a quive iog lip, ’ It will be very lonely, won’t it ? ’ • Sarella is going to stay with ns, and help get settled,’ said VViostanly. ‘ Why, what canid such a butterfly as yon do with all this confusion ? ’ Haddie said nothing. She could hardly tell her husband how mnoh she feared and disliked his stern maiden sister, who always stood up so straight, and wore her iron grey hair twisted into a tight knot at the back of her head, in an inexorable fashion, which made Haddio feel as if her own golden frizzes and braids were vanity and (vexation

of spirits, indeed ; and had a way of looking over and beyond her as If she (Haddle) were of no account whatever. But Sarella was needed, and she came, just as she would have come to nurse a wounded soldier, or keep watch over a household of measles, or scarlet fever, or undertake any other difficult or thankless task. And, upon this rainy day, Sarella went backward and. forward, and looked with a sort of contemptuous pity at the poor little wife, wrapped in her fleecy white shawl, with a rose in her hair and a book in her hand.

* Dear me, Harriet! ’ she had cried out, when at last her slender thread of patience was quite exhausted ; ’ why don’t yon do something p ’ * What shall I do ? ’ asked Haddle, pite ously. ’ I am sure there’s enough to be done, ’ said the rigid elder sister. ‘Can’t you turn and sew that piece of carpet to fit the hail ? ’ 1 1 never did snob a thing in my life,’ said Haddie, eyeing the heap of carpet as if It had been a wild beast ready to spring at her. ‘ I don’t think I could sew anything so big and heavy.’ ‘ There’s all the china to be washed and sorted on the shelves,’ suggested Sarella, grimly. * I should be sure to break it,’ faltered Haddle. ‘ The curtains are all ready to be ticked up to the west room-windows,’ said Sarella, looking round for a taok hammer. ‘ Oh, I couldn’t do that,’ said Haddie, more frightened than ever. * I should be sure to turn giddy on top of that stepladder.’ Sirella looked disdainfully at her beautiful little sister-in-law. ‘ I wonder what you are good for ?’ said she sharply. Haddie hung her head, flashed scarlet, and said nothing. •For all I can see,’ severely went on Sarella, *my big brother might as well have married a big wax doll. It was all very well so long as he was a merchant, fn receipt of a big income. But now—goodness me, what sort of a farmer’s wife do you suppose yon will make V ‘ I don’t know,’ confessed Haddie, feeling herself arraigned before a sort of consolidated Inquisition. * Do you know anything about butter and oheeseP’ demanded Sarella, relentlessly. ‘No 1’ * Did you ever make up a batch of bread ? or pies ? or cake ?’ sternly pursued this ironhearted catheohist. * No,’ whispered Haddie. ‘ Can yon cut and fit your own Kensington stitch P’ ‘ Antique lace I Kensington stitch !’ echoed Sarella, in withering scorn. * Can you make your husband’s shirts ?’ ‘He buys them ready-made,” faltered Haddie, ‘ At least he always did, ‘Humph I’ said Sarella. "I suppose, now, you couldn’t clean house, or wash up the curtains, or make a lot of currant jelly, to save your life ?’ 1 No,’ said Haddie, with a trsmbling voice, 1 I’m afraid I couldn’t.’ * You are nothing more or less than a burden to your husband, ’ said Sarella, with the air of a judge pronouncing sentence of doom ‘You’re no more fit to be married than yonder white kitten. ' And I pity Carlos from the very bottom of my heart, that I do?’

And thus speaking Parella picked up the whitewash brush and stalked away, while poor little Haddio wailed out the beseeching words with which our story commences. ‘ Oh, Sarella, dear Sarella !’ she pleaded ; I try to do my best.’ ‘Your best!’ repeated Sarella. ‘And what does that amount to ? You’re a a hundredweight around his neck—a blight upon his future —that’s what you are. And she whisked into the kitchen, while Haddie ran upstairs to the garret to have a good cry. Haddie was very sad and pensive for a day or two. Carlos looked at her pitifully, afraid to ask if she were discontented in her new home, for now he had none other to offer her. Sarella sniffed at her selfish inefficiency, and the very scrubbing woman put on airs, while Betsy Baker, a neighbor, who came In to help with the ' settling, ’ canght the popular tune, and said loftily : 1 Please, Mrs Winstanly, stand out out of the way while we’re a-stretching this carpet, and don’t bender ns of you can’t help ns I’

At the end of the third day of domestic saturnalia, when Carlos Winstanley came home, Haddie was nowhere to be found, and on her cushion was pinned the following note—

•Dear Carlos— Don’t be vexed, but I have gona away to stay with Aunt. Dorcas Dutton until the Beach Farm is settled. 1 don’t seem to be of use to anybody, and perhaps Sarella will get along better without me. Affectionately your wife—H.W. * There!’ said Sarella to Betsy Baker. •Didn’t I tell you so? She’s so lazy she can’t bear to see other folks work ! And I don’t know whatever Carlos was thinking of when he married her Instead of Boanna Martin, who took the first prize for bread and cake at the country fair, and h»a got a chest full of linen and bedqailts at home,’ But she did not express herself thus plainly to Carlos, when he asked her wistfully, if she knew why Haddie had gone away. 1 I think she’s sick of farms and farmwork,’ said Sarella, pursing up her lips, ‘ I think, Carlos, she’s like little portulaocas in the garden outside, that only blossom when the run shines.’ And Carlos was more wretched than ever, fancying that he had darkened his young wife’s life, and dragged her down into poverty with him. 1 She will come back to me when she chooses, ’he said, sadly. * I shall not go after her.’ And he grow paler, colder and more silent as he went about the duties of the farm ; and Sarella. to use her own expression, ‘flew around as lively as a cricket, ’ and put things into the neatest of order. ‘ We’re better off without Harriet than with her, it’s my opinion,’ said she. to her self. 4 A china doll of a woman, only fit to be walt-d on and made mnob of. I do think Carlos was crazy when he married her 1 ’ At the month’s end, however, Haddie came back, and fluttered down the lilac shaded garden walk to meet her husband, like a bird, as he returned from bis day’s work.

* Oh, Oarloa 1 Carlos! * she cried, * I am so glad to be here again.’ 4 Little one,’ he asked, almost reproachfully, * why did you leave me ? ’ *1 have been at school,’ said Haddie, radiantly. ‘ I have been learning —my profession. Oh, Carlos, you never can tell how helpless and awkward I felt here, in my own house, knowing that 1 was as ignorant as a child of all the things I needed most to comprehend. I love you—oh, so dearly I —and I felt so unworthy of you—so unable to help yon in your sore need as a wife should help her husband. Sarella despised my ignorance —the very servants looked down on me as a helpless doll, and they were right But they never shall do so any more, for I’ve learnt t ■ be a honskeeper at last —Aunt Dorcas has taught me everything. I can make butter like gold, and cheese that even Sarellp will not criticise. I sha'l prepare you some strawberry short-cake to-morrow, and my bread and biscuits are as white and light as swanadown; and I’ve made you a shirt, Carlos, all by myself, and Aunt Dorcas says I needn’t be ashamed of it; and I can wash and iron, and clear-starch as well as ever old Ohloe did when I was a girl at home. ’’ * Haddie! Haddio ! ’ he cried. ‘ Why did you do this ? ’ ‘ For love of yon,’ she answered, simply ; ‘ to be to you what a wife should be to her husband. Vou needn’t think lam going to settle down into a common drudge, Carlos I like Shakespeare and the Kensington stitch as well as ever. But a farmer’s wife should not be blind and helpless at the head of her oivn household, aad I am thankful to have learned how to do all these things.’ ‘ You are an angel, Haddie !’ he said, earnestly. * I am only your true, loving little wife,’ aho answered, hiding her face on hia breast Sarella needed to stay at the Beach farm no longer ; Betsey Baker was dismissed, and Haddie took her place at the helm, and of alljchs happy, efficient, stirring farmer’s wives Mrs Winstanly bore away the palm. ‘I never supposed there was so much in her,’ sad Sarella. ‘Oarloa couldn't have made a bettor choice if he had tried for a year.' ‘ It does beat all! ’ said Betsy Baker,