LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2672, 30 October 1882, Page 4

LITERATURE.

A SUMMER AMUSEMENT,

Sitting in the airy ‘ company chamber 5 two nights after bis arrival at the Mountain. Farm, Royce Worthington wrote the following letter: — ‘ My Dear Muriel, —I can fancy you all in your sheen and shimmer of satin and gems to-night at the hop-flirting desperately with some poor victim, who does not imagine that the sole possessor of your heart sits in his room alone and lonely high up in the Green Mountains writing to you. Well, go on, my dear, flirt to your heart’s content, and your victim’s despair—your time is short. Next year, if I regain my health as my physician has promised, I will be near you to prevent your exercise of that privilege, which will be your privilege no longer. * I have been two days at my now home. The air here is delicious, clear, bracing, invigorating, a tonic and a stimulant in one. Already I feel benefited—and trust that six weeks of this atmosphere will completely rout the last vestige of the malaria which has made life a burden to mo for mouths. But think of me—a man who has been in a whirl of business and social life for thirty years—to be exiled to this lonely mountain farm for a whole season ! The family consists of Mr and Mrs Roberts, and one daughter, a rather sweet-faced girl of perhaps twenty. She lias only lifted her eyes to mine ones, and then I thought them pretty, a dreamy dove-color. She seems to stand a little in awe of mo, and is evidently a perfectly unsophisticated maiden. Even if I make her acquaintance, she will bo but a poor substitute for the companionship of your own brilliant self. Pity me, then, and write mo often. I have only my dog, my gun, my books, and my memories, to make the tedious time endurable, remember, while you have all the world at your feet, and all the majesty of the ocean beyond. * Yours until death, ' Royce Worthington.’ Just one week later he received the following reply Long Branch, July 15.

Mon Chor : I have just time for a line before 1 dress for the hop. I am really sorry for you, my poor boy, to be so far away from all that renders life endurable ; but I know it is the only thing for you—the only treatment to overcome that horrid malaria, which was spoiling your complexion. I am enjoying myself as usual —yes, Boyce, I suppose I am flirting with a handsome Englishman, who is setting all the ladies wild. But, of course, you can trust me ; and now I will bo equally fair with you. Why don’t you begin an interesting flirtation with that wild mountain flower you wrote me of; twenty years old, inexperienced, unsophisticated ? Why it is high time some one taught her a little of the world. You are the proper person, Boyce—so I give you full permission to amuse yourself. But, of course, never forget your own Mueiel Lacey.

Boyce Worthington’s smile settled into a slight frown as he read the letter to its close. Just a little heartless, the tone of it seemed, somehow—this light, laughing, instruction that he should go deliberately to work to —what ? Simply to win a simple girl’s heart and break it. So for a moment the better nature of this selfish man of the world reasoned, and rebuked the writer of the letter. But an hour later, when he met Celeste Boberts in the mountain path that led to the spring, he gallantly relieved her of the pail upon her arm, and walked hy her side to the spring, smiling down upon her with his most dangerous smile. ‘ Bo 'you know I am very curious over something ?’ he said as they walked along. * Something upon which you alone can satisfy my curiosity ?’ ‘ Why, what can it be ?’ she asked wondcringly, lifting her long lashes for a moment.

Boyce laughed—a merry musical laugh it was !

‘ There I am answered already,’ ho said. ‘ I have been wondering over the color of your eyes ever since I came here. You have never allowed me to see them hut once before, and then only for a second. But X see that I was right in my conjecture. I thought they were dove-color and they are.

Celeste looked up at him with the frank innocence of an unconscious child.

* Are they ?’ she said. I have sometimes read of dove-colored eyes, but I never know mine were that color. I thought they were grey, and I did not know that I bad never looked at you. I hope you have not thought me impolite ? indeed I want to make it pleasant for you here—l know it must be lonely to one like you.’ Eoyce felt bis blood hurry through his veins. How charming she was in her frank, confiding innocence. How delicious the love of sufch a girl would be —how interesting to watch her heart unfolding day by day, like a rose. ‘ It is lonely,’ he said, ' I find myself pining for companionship very often. I have only my books, and I am too tired and languid to road long at a time, and my eyes have troubled me a little—over since the fever which depleted mo so.’ ‘ Would you like to have me read to you an hour or two every day ? I could if it would please you.’ Celeste said with a modest shyness of manner, and the suggestion of a blush in her cheek.’

‘ I would be delighted, only it seems too great a favor to ask of you.’ ‘ But you did not ask it, I offered. I feel it to be my duty, since you were sent hero for your health, to help you to regain it. It is for the credit of Mountain Farm that I do tliis,’ and she laughed merrily as a child.

‘ Well then. I yield a willing assent. I am sure Dr Kingman would feel confident of my recovery if he could know into what hands I have fallen. He sent me hero assuring me that it was the only air and and the only place to regain my health and strength.’ * Yes so father told mo. A sister of Dr. King-man’s came to us last year supposed to be beyond hope of recovery—almost every disease in the list of human ills seemed to have possession of her poor body. Yet she left us quite well after three months. Surely you ought to become robust in a few weeks.” * I begin to fear that I shall recover too rapidly to please me,’ Eoyce responded. But Celeste made no reply to this—indeed she did not seem to have heard him. Her dove colored eyes were fixed in the purple and amethyst that was touching the mountain tops with glory. ‘Of what are you thinking ?’ queried Eoyce after a moment’s silence during which he watched her lifted face that wore the look of a saint. He discovered that Celeste was more than a pretty girl—she was beautiful.

‘ I was thinking of the world that lies beyond those mountain tops/ she said. ‘ The world of which I know so little. I wonder if I would be happy there ?’ ’ Eoyce watched her smiling; already was there a ‘ vague unrest’ in her gentle bosom ? ‘ It is a wonderful world,’ he said, ‘ and there is much in it for one like you to enjoy. Pictures, operas, plays, fine works of art—yes, you would like the world beyond your mountains.' * But I have all those things here,’ Celeste answered softly. ‘ All, and none of the petty annoyances, the heart-aches, and the strife which I would find in the world.’

‘ I do not understand you/ he said. ‘ She smiled —her saint-like, childlike smile/

‘Don’t you? Well, what picture could bo grander than that yonder—where the sun touches tho mountain peaks with fingers dipped in glory ? I think there is no other word that describes a mountain sunset but that one—glory. And what opera could he finer than a storm in tho mountains when the winds crash through the great pines and unite with heaven’s orchestra —tho thunder. And what play can equal the weird and wonderful display of the clouds above the mountain tops, changing, shifting, never the same, yet always beautiful or terrible ? And what works of art can compare with this mountain scenery on every side ? Surely I have a world as wonderful as that which lies beyond the mountains.’ To be continued.