AFFECTION REPELLED.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume III, Issue 219, 4 September 1847, Page 4

AFFECTION REPELLED.

" Good night, Susan," said Florence. " Good night, my darling, dear Miss Floy." Her tone of commisseration smote the chord so roughly touched, but never listened to while she or any one looked on. Florence, left alone, laid her head upon her hand, and, pressing the other over her swelling heart, held free communication with her sorrows. It was a wet night, and the melancholy rain fell, pattering and dropping with a weary sound. A sluggish "wind was blowing, and went moaning round the house as if it were in pain or grief. A shrill noise quivered through the trees. While she sat weeping it grew late, and dreary midnight tolled out from the steeples. Florence was little more than a child in years, —not yet fourteen; and the loneliness and gloom of such an hour in the great house where Death had lately made its own tremendous devastation might have set an older fancy brooding on vague terrors. But her innocent imagination was too full of one theme to admit them. Nothing wandered in her thoughts but love, » wandering love, indeed, and castaway, but turning always to her father. There was nothing in the dropping of the rain, the moaning of the wind, the shuddering of the trees, the striking of the solemn clocks that shook this one thought or diminished its interest. Her recollections of the dear dead boy, and they were never absent, were itself, the same thing. And oh, to be shut out, to be lost, never to have looked into her father's face, or touched him, since that hour! She could not go to bed, poor child, and never had gone yet, since then, without making her nightly pilgrimage to his door. It would have been a strange, sad sight to have seen her now, stealing lightly down the stairs through the thick gloom, and stopping at it, with a beating heart, and blinded eyes, and hair that fell down loosely and unthought of, and touching it, outside, with her wet cheek. But the night covered it, and no one knew. The moment that she touched the door on this nigh: Florence found that it was open. For the first time it stood open, though by but a bair's-breadtb, and there was a light within. The first impulse of the timid child, and she yielded to it, was to retire swiftly ; her next, to go back, and to enter; and this second impulse held her in irresolution on the staircase. In its standing open, even by so much as that chink, there seemed to be hope. There was encouragement in seeing a ray of light from within stealing through the dark, stern stern doorway and falling in a thread upon the marble floor. She turned back, hardly knowing what she did, but urged on by the love within her and the trial they had undergone—together, but not shared, and, with her hands aJittle raised and trembling, glided in. Her father sat at his old table in the middle of the room. He had been arranging some papers and destroying others, and the latter lay in fragile ruins before him. The rain dripped heavily upon the glass panes in the outer room, where he had so often watched poor Paul, a baby, and the low complainings of the wind were heard without. But .not by. him. He «at .with his eyes fixed on the table, so- immersed in thought that a

far heavier tread than the light foot of his child could make might have failed to rouse him. His face was turned towards her. By the waning lamp, and at that haggard hour, it looked worn and dejected, and in the utter loneliness surrounding him there was an appeal to Florence that struck home. " Papa ! papa ! speak to me, dear papa !" He started at her voice and leaped up from his seat. She was close before him, with extended arms. But he fell back. " What is the matter ?" he said sternly. " Why do you come here ? What has frightened you ?" If anything had frightened her it was the face turned upon her. The glowing love within the breast of his young daughter froze before it, and she stood and looked at him asif stricken into stone. There was not one touch of tenderness or pity in it. There was not one gleam of interest, parental recognition, or relenting in it. There was a change in it, but not of that kind. The old indifference and cold restraint had given place to something, what, she never thought, and did not dare to think, and yet she felt in its force, and knew it well without a name, that, as it looked upon her, seemed to cast a shadow on her head. Did he see before him the successful rival j of his son in health and life ? Did he look upon his own successful rival in that son's affectiou ? Did a mad jealousy and withered pride poison sweet remembrances that should have endeared and made her precious to him? Could it he possible that it was gall to him to look upon her in her beauty and her promise, thinking of his infant boy ! Florence had no such thoughts. But love is quick to know when it is spurned and hopeless, and hope died out of hers as she stood looking in her father's face. " I ask you, Florence, are you frightened? Is there anything the matter that you come here ?" " I came, papa, — " " Against my wishes. Why ?" She saw he knew why, — it was written broadly on his face, — and dropped her head upon her hands with one prolonged, low cry. Let him remember it in that room, years to come. It has faded from the air before he breaks the silence. It may pass as quickly from his brain as he believes, but it is there. Let him remember it in that room years to come ! He took her by the arm. His hand was cold and loose, and scarcely closed upon her. " You are tired, I dare say," he said, taking up the light and leading her towards the door, " and want rest. We all want rest. Go, Florence : you have been dreaming." The dream she had had was over then, God help her ! and she felt that it could never more come back. "I will remain here to light you up stairs. The whole house is yours above there," said her father, slowly. "You are its mistress now. Good night !" Still covering her ftce, she sobbed, and answered, "Good night, dear papa," and silently ascended. Once she looked back, as if she would have returned to him but for fear. It was a momentary thought, too hopeless to encourage ; and her father stood there with the light, hard, unresponsive, motionless, until the fluttering dress of his fair child was lost in the darkness. Let him remember it in that room, years to come. Tke rain that falls upon the roof, the wind that mourns around the door, may have foreknowledge in their melancholy sound. Let him remember it in that room years to come ! The last time he had watched her, from the same j»lace,winding up those stairs, she had had her brother in her arms. It did not move his heart towards her now : it steeled it. But he went into his room and locked his door, and sat down in his chair, and cried for his lost boy. Diogenes was broad awake upon his post, and waiting for his little mistress. •• Oh, Di ! Oh, dear Di ! Love me for his sake !" Diogenes already loved her for her own, and didn't care how much he showed it.