LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2468, 4 March 1882, Page 4

LITERATURE.

ONLY TEN MINUTES ; OR, WHAT MY DREAM TOLD ME. ( Continued .)

«So that’s dreaming, la it ?’ thought I. ‘ I suppose it’s all right to experience everything just once, bat if It depends upon me, I’ll never try that again. It seems to mo uncommonly like a spasm of lunacy ; and where the pleasure of it lies I can’t eee. And yet I’m as certain that I saw uncle George turned Into a candle, with my own eyes, as I am that I see the wall before me. And In the same candlestick with a woman —that’s too utterly absurd.’ I leaped out of bed and in ten minutes was In fall swim across the little lake below the inn. By the time I had reached the other side the dream had left me —like a dream. But the lake did not prove Lathe, for long. While I was going to the piace where I now knew I should find Mildred, the grotesque scene of the human candles burning ont in a room made of playing cards came back to me in all its vividness, and made me feel most absurdly uncomfortable. I suppose people who often dream get used to such night adventures ; as for me, I oonld not convince my unreason that what I had seen was absolutely unreal. It was a relief to me when I saw Mildred again ; for need I say that my heart had been filled with heavy forebodings about her by this idlotio dream ? •Do you ever have dreams, Miss Ashton ? ’

• Very often. Why V * Then perhaps you can read me mine. I told her my story ; and telling it in the fresh air under the light of the sun proved a better way of putting it into the light of nonsense than even my plunge Into the Jake had been. . . ~ . « It is certainly a very odd sort of nightmare,’ said she. ‘ Bat I fancy you are wrong in thinking that It had nothing to do with the day. I daresay we had mentioned your uncle 5 no doubt you had been thinking about him, and a dream of China of course would suggest a great deal of china-ware The fog and the weight of the knees are signs of unpleasant dreams that everybody knows. Of course, since you tell me that your uncle la a woman-hater yon would naturally see a woman with him in a dream ; and as to the candles and the flat brass candlestick —what was the last thing you saw or did before sleeping ? You put out your candle, I suppose ; and— ’ • And it was in a fiat brass candlestick I That it certainly was. Well, I suppose you are right as usual, and that there was really nothing out of the common in recognising one’s uncle in a candle. I oentalnly don t see what It could portend : most decidedly it can never come true. You say yon dream ; have you ever known a dream come true ?'

‘ Never, strange to say.’ • Strange ? I should have thought all the strangeness would bo the other way, if all dreams were like mine.’ < But they are not all like youra, said Mildred. ‘ And surely it is almost a miracle, out of the millions and millions of dreams that are dreamed every n'ght all over the world, bo few thousands should happen by chance to be fulfilled. The fewness of their fulfilments la the moat wonderful thing about dreams.* • 'Well, my uncle is not likely to turn Into a caudle, anyhow. However, I am glad to think that my brain had some foundation of fact to build upon— ’ 1 If you were used to dreaming you would think nothing of it, indeed. I have much stranger dreams than that, often and often I but I take them as a matter of course, and never think of them fc ter waking;’ I wished with all my heart that she would take things less *s a matter of course. Would she take It as a matter of course that I should ask her to be my wife, and that she should say no? But there was not much chance of letting one’s own thoughts tat e the bit between their teeth in her company. She had an insatiable appetite for what I looked upon as hard work, but wh'ch never wearied her. I believe I had done twice as much work in these few weeks as iu a whole year before—not that this is to say a great deal. Before long my dream was absolutely forgotten once more—no doubt had it cot been % new experience, it would as she had said, have been absolutely forgotten long ago. But presently it came back, in quite a new way. Had It not led the way to the interpretation of another dream ? It needed some courage to risk putting an end to the idyl of Llanpwll. Bat it had to bt done ; I felt as if something would keep the end from ever coming unless it oame to day. • I have not told yon the whole of my dream yet,’said I at last, laying down my brush. * Shall I tell yon the rest ? Though it seems impossible yon should need to be told. There ; I will and I must tell you. All day long I am dreaming that I love yon —no, that is no dream —but that I have told you so, and that you have said— But why am I talking about dreams ? If you haven’t guessed that I loved you the first day I saw you, once for all. you know it now. Don’t say we know nothing of one another yet, for we do—’

So much I know I said ; I am not snch an impostor as to pretend that I can repeat the rest of the words in which I asked Mildred to marry me. Were the sentences quite couerent, grammatical, and full of meaning for strange ears, in which yon asked your wife (if you have one) to marry you —always supposing that you loved her below the depth of your tongue, and had more fear than hope of her answer ? I spoke on with my whole heart; I looked in her face, not knowing what to read. It was full of what might mean a thousand things, I did not dare to hold out my hand j only while 1 spoke I was listening for the faintest shadow of a coming word. At last, as wo stood face to face, her lips parted and began to move. ‘ Mildred!’ cried a sharp elderly voice from behind the corner of the rook. ‘ Mildred ! where in the name of mercy have you been?

Could anything have been more horribly unlucky than the sudden appearance of this old lady just then and there ? She had made no sign for weeks ; it was as if she had been watching for the precise moment when she would be most in the way. I may wrong her ; but I thought her the most evillooking monster that had ever been seen—and had she been as young and as beautiful as Mildred herself, I should have thought the same. In point of fact she was very elderly and very pla’n; and I multiplied her In both directions by ten. Mildred herself, for the first time, seemed to lose her self-possession, and to turn very pale. •My aunt. Miss Reynolds—Mr Kenrick,’ she said falterlngly. Mias Reynolds scarcely deigned to curtsy; I just managed to bow. ‘So!’ said Mias Reynolds, turning her shoulder towards me contemptuously, end speaking to Mildred. ‘So this is the meaning of your painting mania, is it; your scarlet and yellow fever, eh ? Coming out to meet youog men, alone. Perhaps you think I haven’t known It all along, and that I didn’t think there was more Art about it all than you’d have me believe—and nature ; stuff 1 Human nature you mean. I guessed as much, and now I know. You’ll please to come home with me. Come.’ «Miss Beynolds, ’ said I, recovering my presence of mind, ‘ I am not going to leave this spot till I know whether yonr neloe will be my wife or no. And as to her, she no more knew until to-day that I love her— ’

‘ Not leave this spot ? You’ll have to take root in it, then, young man ; or rather you may leave it as soon as you like, for I say to you, No !' •It is from heraelf that I must— ’ I began, trying to be as courteous t"> Mildred’s aunt as she would allow me.

* Stuff and nonsense !’ said Mies Reynolds, 1 And who, pray are you ? What have you to do with the matter, I should like to know ?’

‘ Everything in the world. My name Is Kenrick—Arthur Kenrick ; I am an artist— ’

’ So I perceive, sir, from yonr clothes. May I ask, since you presume to my niece’s band, if yon are an R.A. 1’ < Not yet, Miss Reynolds; nor an Associate, even. But— ’

‘ An exhibitor, no doubt. Can you give me the name of one of your works that has been hung on the line ?’ • I have never as yet exhibited a pictnre. But—’ * I am aware,’ said Miss Reynolds, throwing a studiously veiled note ’of sarcasm into her tone, ‘ that many famous painters keep aloof from tho Academy on principle. It ;s

only right I should know the olronnutanoea as well as the name of the—the —person who tries to entrap my niece Into a secret engagement without my leave. No doubt, though yon do not exhibit, you sell your works for large sums ?’

* I have not yet sold a picture. Miss Reynolds, But — 1

* You mean to tell me you are a common drawing-master ?’ she said, with scorn unveiled.

‘I am not even that,’ said I- * But if I were— *

‘ You have been saying “But” five hundred times. “ But ” what, if you please ! I can’t stay here all day.’ ‘ I was going to tell you, Miss Reynolds, that though 1 am not yet a famous painter, I am of, I hope, sufficient respectability and means. My father was a well-known and wealthy ooloniil broker in Bondon ; lam his eldest son—’

‘Ah 1’ suid Miss Reynolds, with genuine interest in her voice. ‘ You only paint for amusement, then—though I don’t see why a gentleman should go about in a coat as shabby as yours. Your father, I am to understand, died a wealthy man, and yon are his heir ?’

‘ I was speaking then of my respectability only—not of my means. I have not inherited anything from my father. My brothers and sisters are his heirs. But—’ ‘ “ But ” number five hundred and one ! I see. You offended your father by turning vagabond artist, and he very properly out you off with a shilling, though you are his eldest son. I thought a gentleman would have made love in more decent clothes, smelling less like a pothouse. Good-morn-ing, Mr Kenrlck, and better luck next time.’

What was I to say to the old virago ? I could not bring myself to speak of my real means and settled expectations until Mildred herself had answered me; and this treatment of me because I seemed poor, and her insults towards my brothers in art, made any course but silence on this score impossible. To Mildred I would of course tell everything so soon as she had answered me ; but to Miss Reynolds, not a word. * Very well, then,’ said I. 'ln the character of a poor unknown landscape painter, disinherited—if you will have it so —for preferring art to trade, but too honest to cheat his tailor, I demand to know from Miss Ashton’s own lips whether she will give me any hope that she will ever be my wife or no— if she knows we well enough to trust her happiness in my hands. I dot think she will refuse me that hope because I am poor.’ ‘Oh, if it comes to that,’ said Miss Reynolds, ‘ I’ll go and pick a gooseberry or two with pleasure. I’m not afraid of wnat Mildred will say to you now—she knows my will.’

1 did not notice her last words just then. They seemed to signify merely that, whatever she willed, others must obey. And besides, Mildred, who had been standing by in silence, spoke at last, and she said—‘Aunt Jane, you need not go. I would rather say before yon, just now, everything that I have to say. I know yon have meant to be kind to me, and I have tried to be grateful; but I must live my own life, after all. I had found that out before I knew—-h.-fore Mr Kenrick ; everybody has to find it out at first or at last, I suppose. I should have become a very bad companion for you. Yes, I do know Sir Kenriok, I hope and I believe. I hope he knows me as well! I am glad that he is poor, and that he—’ She said no more, but she gave me her hacd. (To he continued .)