LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2458, 21 February 1882, Page 4

LITERATURE.

HIS CHRISTMAS ROSE

Won and Losr. [From " London Society."] (Continued.) ' Give me that ro=e back again,' she began interrupting him ; but he shielded It with his hand, and they pretended for a moment to fight for it. Then thay parted, very affootionate!y—very affectionately indeed ; and Ned went home tbe happiest man, so he thought, in all the oonntry side ; and Rose, tired out, fell asleep with her heart blissfully at rest. It was a cold night. Ned guarded the little Christmas rose very carefully as he trudged along the ice b.iund country road. When ho reached his room a volume of modern poems was lying on the tab e ; he found some verses he knew by heart (they had reminded him of himself and some one else), and he laid the flower npon them. Then he felt jealous of that other man's varees. Why shonld'nt he make a poem of his own to lay that Chiistmas rose against ? He had been crammed for many examinations, and had even msnaged to pass one or two. Oat of the fulness of his happy heart this one iioe sprang spontaneously : 'An, how I envy Ohr'.stmss ros?s I ' H« wrote it down, looked at it ; It was, he thought, a good line lo itself, but when ha wanted to put another to it there were difficulties. 1 JHoses fanity ! Bssides, she has only one !) Ah, I have it—' roposeu :' that will do capitally I ' Ah, how I envy Christmas rosea, That softly in her hair reposes ! ' Why, that's not grammar ! Can't be, 'JKotsea ' plura"—'reposes ' singular. I Bee' though—l seo I Have ' repese ' and ' rose : * Happy is the Christmas rOBe That in her dark hair rep.se—' O, con-oon-co.ifound it ! That w.n't do either.' JSed sat up in the cold for some time try iog to fin -1 that other line, but in vain At, last with frozen fingers he again placed the roio on the other man's poem, kissed it, closed the book, and went to sleep. The next morning he called to leave his card, and aleo to see Miss Sheddon, who was merely a visitor. To arrive at tbe pcrtico of the house be must needs pass the library window. Ho thought it was very llkoly Rose would be there, so he lo jked in as he pa Rei. Rose was there, so was Mr M< nkton. Ntither was retding ; tboy were both bending over the table, and it struck Mr Ned very forcibly that their heads wore quite near together He :o;t capable at the moment, so furious was he, of crashing through the plate-glass door into their presence. The strong bonds of custom, however, compelled him to enter tVe house in the ordinary way. When the library door was opened for him, and he went in, there was Rose, there was Monktoa, and no one else ; and worse than all, Boee and Mockton were obviously dolDg nothing, and the faces of both were very much flushed. • Well, Ned, you're not looking quite—' began Rose, in an artle-s iunocent manner that, to Ned's excited mind, o-ntrasted painfully with her heightened color. >.'ed uttered a quick succession of incoherent sounds.

* The children enjoyed themselves wonderfully l&st night,' o -served Monkton placWly. ' Unfortunately I'm afraid s me of thorn—' More mutterfnge from Ned. 1 1 think, Miss Sneddon, if yon excuse me, I'll walk over to .-'mallacro and seo how old Harrison ia getting on,'said Mr Monkton, and, with a bland smile, withdrew. ' i saw you—l saw you as I passed the window! Wh»t—what am I to under"i and ? ' demanded Ned, as soon as he and Bose were alone. ' I don't know to what you ore alluding.' said Bose quietly ; but before either cculd utter another word Mrs Oarston, the lady with whom Hose was staying, came in, and to her Bose devoted herself, to the utter d»Bpair of Ned, who, after making frantlo eff >rts to get her to follow him into another room, left the house, and spent tbe re«t of that miserable day in a state of Indescribable fury. The following morning, life having become utterly unbuarable to him, Ned determined to settle the matter at once. Again he passed the library window. Agßin Rose was there ; this time alone. She was leaning her pure white cheek against her hand ; perhaps after all, he had been mistaken ; he would fall on his knees and confess how he had wronged her, and promise never—never— But at that moment, the hall door being opened, he caught sight of Monkton put.ting letters into the post-bag, and beheld 'that in Monkton'a button hole there was a Christmas rose. Monkton met his defiant gaze with an easy smiio endued; then turned and want up-stairs gb if nothing were the matter. It was too much for Ned ; it exapperated him beyond all bounds. Be walked into the library and op to Ro3e's chair, his face livid with passion. •What do you mean by this?' he exclaimed, hardly able to articulate. ' I think it is I who ousiht to ask what y-u mean by this,' said Rase firmly, but very sadly. 'Did you give that fellow that—that Ohristm»s rose?' Ned went on; 'answer me!' 'You ought to know,' said Rose, still more gravely. ' Answer me, yes or no I' demanded Ned. 'I will not, said Rose, looting him full in the face.

'Then you did !* said Ned. •I repeat, yr.u ought to know,' said Rose distinctly. ' -And if yon ask me from now until the end of the world I will tell you nothing else.' •Then It's all over between us!' cried Ned ' Very well,' assented Bose, with a sad and stately droop cf her head 'We'll never meet again!' Bald Fed fiercely. 'Very well,' again assented Robo, with another droop of her head, looking all the while like a queen hearing her own deathwarrant read. There were miny more word', very dre- dful words, from Ned, and then they parted. The same evening Rose sent back all the little presents that Ned had given her, presents to boy whbh the poor silly fellow had gone without many and many a much-needed thing himself. Tfcat same evening Ned, who had been wandering about the country for hours, came home and went straight to that book of poems within which lay the Christmas ro?e, and his own line and a half of poetry. He seized the book savagely, and was In the very aot of hnrilng it into the fire, when a piercing shriek rang through the houße, and Ned, flinging the poems on the floor, rushed down-stairs. Ciiaptkr IT. LOST AND WON. That shriek announced the end of one more phase of poor Ned'c life ; with it came the breaking up of Ned'a old heme. His father was in the arm chslr !>y the firedead. A servant bringing in the lamp had found him there. It was a terrible blow for Ned. His father wea his only near relative—morfover his father, never a rich man, had lest much lately, and what income he had diei with him. Ned was now entirely dependent on his own exertions. As soon as he well could, he wont up to London to see the great man who had promised his father to do oil best for him. ihe g'eat man was kind, asked him to dinner ; bnt at dinner Ned said exactly the very things he should not have eaid, and meaning to be mnst courtcouß, contrived to Insult the great man at his own table in the mo-t pointed way. Ned consequently did not got that excel; lent appointment he had always believed

would be his ; and things went with him bo iadly that at last he was thankful when he ,vaa sent to a remote and dismal provin ial iowd, to look after her Majesty's Inland Revenuo, and exist, as best he could, on a very minute revenue of hia own. Fjr two wretched years he vegetated In that remote and dismal town. During the whole of that tlmo he only onoe heard even a word about Rose, and then • he was told that she was going to be married 'To Monkton, of courte!' he said bitterly. But at the end of those two long wretched years Fortune turned her wheel in favor of Mr Ned, and by the will of a distant relative ho became Edmund Farley, Esq , of Twlttercomba. Twlttorcom.be was a charming littlo estate, bringing in, let va say, about two thousand a year. There was a pretty house overlooking tho English Channel, from which you could aeo the lovely coast for many and many a mile. There were also well-wooded grounds, a little good shooting, a trcut stream, and sundry other items calculated greatly to cheer, oven If they but imperfectly consoled, so h art broken a young man as N<d Farley. It cannot be denied that he was pleased with the change in his circumstances. In due time Ned Farley went to live at Twittercombe, and people oame to call npon him. Comfortable elderly gentlemen and their wives were very kind to him, and asked him to dinner or to garden pirtles. He accepted several invitations, but he felt a strange shrinking from going into an entirely fresh eooiety, among which he seemed destined by Fate to take up a definite position. The first engagement on his list was to a large garden party, where there was to be lawn tennis, and where, he was told, he was to meet the county. On the morning of what proved to be an eventful day he awoke in an exceedingly sby and nervous frame of mind. Ee tried to console himself with the reflection that he knew he really could play tennia well, and that he looked his best in white Annuel; but still anxious forebodings filled his heart. He wished he hid invited a young man or two to support him; then he thought that if he were going to make a fool of himself (about which contingency he had little doubt, as it was what always happened), it would be jnst an well if none of his pergonal friends saw 'him do bo. One source alone sustained him in view of meeting the county utterly unprotected, and that was that he owed his present good fortune—if, indeed, it was to ba called good fortune—to the fact that at that dreadful dinner, when ho had so innocently inulted the great man, the distant relative who had left him Twittercombe, happening to be present, had been greatly struck by his ingenuousness, and had appended a noto to that effect in his will, which note was a great source of consolation to poor Ned. {To be continued )