LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2485, 24 March 1882, Page 4

LITERATURE.

THAT HALLOW EVE. {Concluded.) The clock struck twelve, and away they all fled like a flock of Lightened birds. All was silence for a moment. Mollie let down her great evil of dark hair, and began to comb and recite, getting into the eqnare of mirrors which hangover the wash sink. A largo lamp stood on the table at her left, and behind her was,a window which opened upon a back yard. As she looked Into the mirror ho saw a face pres»ed close against that window pane. An evil face with deep black eyes, a sallow skin, and a cruel mouth - ha’f concealed by a heavy blaok moustache. She gave one piercing cry and full in a dead f»int.

Olive and Helen came rushing back, alarmed to find their friend unconscious upon the floor. Helen ran quickly and unlocked the parlor door and ca'led Dr, Evans, whom she half suspected had tome way made h!s escape and frightened Mollie by suddenly appearing to her. But the four young men were found chatting together, quietly awaiting their time of deliverance. A few drops of cold water on her face soon restored Mollie to consciousness, but her bright spirits and mirth failed to return to her.

‘I was frightened by a face—at least I thought I saw a face behind me,’ was all she would say, but. her pallor and reserve gave all the impres-ion that she was withholding something. They little dreamed of what vital importance to herself and one other, was that which she withheld.

Mollie vtai barely restored to consciousness when Kato Isaacs entered, her dark eyes larger and darker, her cheeks pale even the lips white. * Girls !’ she cried, what did yon see ?’ * I never saw a thing,’ pouted Helen. ‘All I accomplished was to tear my dress on a nail and burn my fingers with the hot tallow that dripped fiom the candle while I repeated those ridiculous verses.’ ‘And I neither saw nor heard anything strange or mysterious, tho’ I performed my part to the latter,’ said Oiive, ‘ but Mollie saw something—a face—which Lightened her so she fainted.’

‘ A face,’ repeated Kate. ‘ Was it a wonderful face with great, blue eyes, the color of the ocean, and with features like sculptured marble ?’

Mollie shook h<r head and shuddered. ' No,’ she almost whispered, ‘ it was a dark, evil face,’

* Well, thin, it was not the one I saw.’ ‘Oh! did you really see something after ali your i coding ?’ cried Helen. ‘ I certainly did, girls,’ acknowledged Kate, frankly. ‘I wont out very boldly as y u know, and full of unbelief. The moon was under a clond, and at first I could not see where to go. After a little I made my way to the garden. Jnst as I stooped down to pu'l a cabbage, the moon came out and I thought I heard a deep sigh near me, and starting up, I looked right into the handsomest eyes I ever saw In my life. They seemed shining upon me just above tho garden wail. I only gave one glance and then ran for dear life 1 Bat I shall remem*

bor that face to my dying day, and I will die an old maid nnleis I find the owner of those eyes, ‘I don’t make such rath vows!’ cried Tom Brown. ‘ Other men own eyes and hearts beside that creature of your wild m agination.’

*lt was no creature of my imagination,’ Kate affirmed. ‘lt was either a vision cr a living man; and there can be no other eyes like those in the world—as dark and blue as the sea. 1 shall surely fiud the owner sometime.’

‘We will see,’ paused Tom. * I only hope I may find him before you do.’ * I have no denbt it was a tramp prowling about far plunder, and that his companion was the one who alarmed Moliie. Boys, let us go out and take a look at the premises Bring along that riflo np yonder,’ said Dr. Evans.

But Moliie sprang np and barred the door.

‘No, no?’ she oriel excitedly. ‘Yon must not—shall not go.’ ‘ But, my dear Moliie, it really seems as if some vagrant were prowling about the place. Such is the csss, or else you young ladies are the victims of a highly excited Imagination.’ ‘That is it—it is all our imagination,’ Moliie answered quickly. *We were so wrought up, you know, talking about ghostly subjects, that we both imagined wo saw faces. But we rea'ly saw nothing—of course ’

But MolHe’s pale faoo helled her words.

5 At all events we had better all go home and allow these girls In go to sleep ’ suggested Tom Brown. ‘ Miss Isaacs, although my eyes are like my name, instead of leing deeply beautifully, darkly blue, will you allow me to conduct you back to yonr abode, a wiser, but a sadder man ? Or do you prefer to go alone, and seek the owner of the eyes ?’ 1 No. thank you, not to night,' laughed Kate ; * I prefer the pioteotion of a tangi hie man, even if his eyes are not blue, at this unusual hour. Good night, Moliie, and go to sleep and win back the roses that have so strangely vanished from your cheeks. I did not think yon were so nervous, Moliie.’ When Dr. Evans was left alone to say the last good night to his fair boaters, he too was astonished to find her so nervous. For she clung to him in a wild storm of sobs and tears, and nothing he could say or do had power to calm her, until she grew quiet from exhaustion. Nor could she explain the cause of her emotion, and when at last he left her, her good night was spoken as sadly as though it was a last farewell. Dr. Evans lay awake and pondered long npon his tffianoed’s strange behaviour that night. Moliie had never seemed to him a nervous girl, and her excitement seemed inexplicable to him. More inexplicable seemed the note he received from her the following day : ‘My Dear Friend,—l enclose yonr ring, and 1 want yon to consider our engagement at an end. Do not ask for an explanation. I cannot give it. 'at rest assured that only the moat vital reasons could compel me to this act, which debars me from all earthly happiness. Yonr wretched ‘Mollie.’

Dr. Evans, wild with pain and alarm, rushed to demand an explanation, but Moliie refused to see him. He went again the next day, bat was informed that Miss Moliie bad gone away, accompanied by her father. Three weeks later she returned, looking years older, it seemed to Dr. Evans, to whom she accorded only a formal bow with drooping lids when by chance they met. Dr. Evans went to Mr Gray and demanded an explanation of his daughter’s strange conduct.

Mr Gray’s reply only added to the mystery. ‘ My daughter has the best and most vital reasons for what she hra done.’ ho said.

'Had she, however, from the first acted under my advice there would have been no mystery in this neceisarily painful matter. Hut aa it is. nothing can be said now—and I have given her my solemn word that I will not reveal the circumstances which she chooses to keep a secret. Mollie is snffrrirg terribly, Dr. Evans, and do not add to her agony by one reproachful word, tro and forget her it you can.’ *1 will go,’ Dr. Evans replied,” but I cannot fo-get her.” A month later 'Dr. Evans had sold his practice to a new physician, and had left Meadvllle for parts unknown. Five years had passed since the eventful Hallow Eve.

The young people who had gathered in Mr Gray’s great kitchen, were widely scattered. Olive Brown was buried on the hill ; Tom Brown having fsibd in his suit with Kate Mardy had contented himself with Helen Stacy and sett'ed down to qniet domestic life, seemingly happy with his wife and child, even if memories of another’s face and laugh did haunt his dreams sometimes.

Molly Gray still dwelt with her parents alone in the old farm-house—Molliein whose brown hair the white threads had prematurely crept. Drj Evans was iu the far distant West, and Kate Isaacs In Europe. It had been the ambition of h* r life to travel —she had worked with that aim, and the death of a relative who bad left her a considerable sum of money bad hastened the accomplishment of that desire. She wrote bright sparkling letters to Mollie, who had been her dearest friend all these years. Upon the fifth anniversary of that memorable night, Mohie sat in her room re-read-ing Kate’s last letter. Let us follow her eyes along the lines : ‘ Borne. Italy, September 30. ‘ My Dearest Mollie, —I have the strangest news for you that you ever beard in your life, lam engaged to be married. That ia not the astonishing part of it though He is an American—but that is not what you are to excUim over. His name ia Guy Fletcher, hut you ora not expected to fet-1 surprised at that. He is perfectly elegant, and that you will not wonder at. Bat now listen. I had been engaged to him just one week, when I said to him, Mr Fletcher (perhaps I said Guy), there is something about yorr i ca which always haunts me with a carious resemblance to somebody or something. I felt the first day I eyer saw you—that day I visited your studio with my party—that I had seen you somewhere before. But you have been abroad so many years, it cannot be possible that I have seen yon until now. ‘Ah, but I have returned to America once,’ he said, ‘fife year* ago I made a flying visit to New York and vicinity—just a business trip—but you may have seen me somewhere then.’ ‘Five years ago ?’ I repeated, ‘ No, I was shut no in a schoolroom iu the euhurban town of Meadvill« then. I surely could not have seen you ’ ‘ Meadville ?’ he repeated ; 'why, that was my boyhood’s home—do yon remember an old rambling farm house on a Pill, which, I believe, was b'ught about that time by aMr Gray ? That was where I was born. How well I remember my last glimpse of it. 1 felt 1 coaid not return to Europe without seeing it. so I left the direct route at N and hLed a conveyance to take me across the country, expecting to have several hours to sp-md in M-advi'le, taking the aftern- on Ira n thenoa to New York But the roads were bad and the conveyance poor, that I did not reach Meadville till near midnight. The next train to New York was due at 1 a m., so I left the conveyance on the highway to wait for me, and walked up the hill to take one last look at my childhood’s homo by the waning moonlight. f As I leaned over the garden wall I nearly frightened the wits out of some poor thief who was intent upon garden plunder, I remember. bhe gave one frightened glance at me, and fiad os if the evil spirit was after her, and a moment later I betook my way back to the waiting vehicle and was soon speeding on to Now Yo b.’ Well, Mollie, you can imagine my sensations as I listened to that recital and heard myaelf described as a thieving vagrant. However, I revenged myself by telling him my side of the story ; and how a quartette of young men, but for your Interference, would have pursued him with a rfle and captured him as a tramp with burglarious intentions. And then what a laugh we had over the queer circumstance—for certainly, dear, it is very odd indeed that I came to be the wife of the owner of those very eyes I saw that night. Now, if the mystery that night held for you, dear, which yon would never explain, even to me, but which I feel very sure in some way related to yonr trouble with Dr. Evans—if that could only end as happily as my adventure has how rejoiced I should be, Guy and I shall visit America on our wedding journey, and that will be before many months. ‘Your happy fn'ond, ‘ Kate Isaacs*.’

4 Mollle, there is some one in the parlor to see you. Come down.’ It was her mother's voice, and Mollle arose, wondering who conld call that bleak October night, for the chill Autumn rain was boating drearily at the window pane. 4 How tired and old I look,’ she mused with a sigh as she glanced at the mirror and arranged her hair before descending. ‘ But it doesn’t matter.’ But a moment later ae she entered the parlor, she looked neither tired nor old, for a swift color swept into her cheeks and lip*, making her young and fresh again, as she was caught close to the broad breast of Dr. Evanr,

‘Mollie, dear,’he murooured, ‘I know all —be is dead —I saw him die —and you are free to be my own now, O, why did you not tell me all in the first place Mollie, It would have ssved me years of misery.’ • I could not,’ she sobbed ‘ But oh, Gray ! are you sure he is dead ? Tell mo all about it.’

‘ Yes, yes I will. It was out in Dakota — I am practising there, you know, and one night 1 was called to attend a man who had been stabbed at a card table. He was dying and I told him bo, and told him if he had anything to say, to say It quickly. Th<m he asked me to unclasp the belt he wore about him and open the leather case Inside. * There are some letter* and a marriage certificate In there,’ he said, • which belong to a poor little girl I Induced to elope from boarding-school with me. Send them back to her, and tell her yon saw me die. She will be glad enough to know It is true this time-once she received news of my death, only to have me return and blight all her hopes of happiness, two years later. Poor little Mollie - here is her address, doctor, on this envelope—tell her to forgive ’ —and then he fell back dead. I closed his eves and folded his hands, end then I locked at the parcel he had entrusted to my care. Ob, Mollie ! I can never try to tall you of the feelinea which took prss-asion of me when I saw that it was your name and address on the envelope. But through all the anguish and horror which this dyinz gambler’s revelation brought to me, I was conscious that a feeling of joy predominated, for now I knew the cause of your strange dismissal, and knew, too, that if you were living, I should soon fold yon in my arms again—as I do now—and never leave yon had promised to be mv wife.’

4 What?’ she said, ‘do you want to take for a wife a gambler’s deserted widow, with these hollow cheeks, and these white threads in their hair? Then, indeed, you must love me, dear, and I cannot say yon nay.’ It was a very happy letter which went back across the ocean to Kate Isaacs, and it was a very happy quartette who met in the old farmhouse a few months later, to mntnclly congratulate each other and talk over the wonderful events of that Hallowe’en.