FIRST AND SECOND LOVE.

Westport Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1160, 20 March 1874, Page 4

FIRST AND SECOND LOVE.

[danbxjbx news.] A great deal has been said and written about tlie relative merits of first and second love. The advocates of the former contend that in fervor and unselfishness it has no rival, and that selfsacrifice and self-abnegation, under its influence, are carried to a more exalted degree of perfection than that of any other passion. On the other hand it is urged that one's first experience is simply a dangerous form of emotional insanity uncertain in its duration, and often disastrous in its precipitancy ; and as gold and silver are made purer by the furnace, which burns off their alloys and amalgamation, so love is only pure and intelligent and enduring when its inflammable dross and dangerous hallucinations have been dispelled by the fire of the first experience. The latter is perfectly the ground Deacon Higgins took last Sunday night in a protracted interview with Widow Stebbins. It was quite late before ho finished his argument. Then he had to tell how many silk dresses Mrs Higgins left when she died that had never been made up ; and what perfect little cherubs all six of the little Higgiuses are ; so at last, when the interview closed with a blissful detonation, it was so late that he did not want Elder Skinner, who lives just opposite to see him leave the house ; and Mrs Stebbing thought it would be just as well for him to go down the back stairs and across the yard to the back gate if he would only be careful not to hit against the fresh paint on the staircase, and try not to make noise enough to wake up tho downstairs family. So Mr Higgins took his cane in his right hand, and his hat iu his left, and the skirts of his coats under his elbows, so as not to hit the paint, and started on tiptoe. When on the stair he turned around to tell Mrs Stebbins that he could see just as plain as day. As he did so his cane hit the right side of the stairway : twitching it back, his hat struck the left side ; he looked to see how much paint he had got on it, and tho right skirt of his coat slipped from beneath his elbow; endeavouring to replace it ho brought his cane between his feet just as he was stepping to the fourth stair, Then came a moment of awful suspense, in which ho struggled with the fundamental law of the solar system. In that moment Mrs Stebbins made a pass at his collar to catch him but, missing her aim, she dropped the lamp and fastened on the Deacon's wig. Then there came a sound as of many horsemen, and thena crash, and the door at tho foot of the staii'3 flow from its hinges, and Mr Higgins, his wigless head, glistening fitfully in the pensive moonlight, shot through the narrow entry aftd rolled down tho back stops into the yard, closely followed by his hat and cane, and one of Mrs Stebbins's slippers, which she had kicked off as she stood at the head of tho stairs, and brandished that wig and screamed. The down stairs mau has an illiterate bull-dog chained in a kennel close by tho gate which, when he sow the Deacon ricochet down the steps, thought of what was meant by Darwin's Descent of Man, he did not approve of it; so ho began to tug at tho chain and clamor for blood. Mr Higgins straitened out his limbs one at a time to see how many of them were broken ; then rose to his feet. He could hear the down-stairs man swearing because ho could not find tho carving-knife, and his wifo called " Police !" from one window, while the boy was snapping a hoise-pistol at him from another. He coi.ld not get by that dtg to gi through the gate, but perhaps by slopping on the hen-coop l.e could spring over tLo picket fence.

Ho slopped on the coop easily enough, but when ho jumped the coop tipped over, aud ho cams down across tho top of tho pickets, "which caught in his pants just bolowghis centre of gravity, aud hold him suspended in an inverted position. But " tho most uukindest cut of all" was that tho hen, whose maternal solicitude he had awakened by upsetting tho coop, thought, aud made all the neighbors think that her abduction was the special object of Deacon Higgins's visit to the" yard. And while he was flourishing his* No ll's high above tho fence, and grasping frantically at space with his hands, she went underjj the fence aud began to : scratch and pick and slip down on his head and fill his mouth and eyes with dirt and feathers, aud express her resentment as only a female can. When the neighbors had thrown all tho brickbats aud stones and pieces of board they could find, Elder Skinner leading, the}' ventured to approach. Their surprise and grief on discovering who it was surpassed even their indignation. They unhitched him and carried him to the nearest doctor's to have his shoulder set, and soft poultices applied to such parts as had been exposed to missiles. When ho gets well enough to go out, the church, before taking any decided action, is goiDg to give him a chance to explain, before a special committee, why, if he wanted tho hen, he did not go and buy it of Widow Stebbins, like a gentleman and a Christian, instead of sneaking round at ouo o'clock in the morning, and waking up the whole Third Ward trying to steal it.