A GOLDEN SORROW.

Waikato Times, 10 January 1874, Page 2

A GOLDEN SORROW.

I swear, 't;» better to be lowly born, And range with humble lirers in content, Than to be perked up in a glistering grief, And wear a golden sorrow. -Skakspeare.

• I bare bad a worse bout of it than jours/ began Walter. ' Yes ; very much worse, and lasting tbrco times as long. Since you have been ill, several things have occurred which I want to toll you about ; and first — there will be no difficulty, as soon as you ure able to travel, about your getting to England.' 'No difficulty ! What do you moan, Lawrence ?' 'I mean that strange things have occurred in England. Letters have arrived Don't iou remember thut we were expecting them just when you took the fever?' ' Yea, yes 5 go on : give me the letters.' 'Presently. You must let me toll you something nbont them. First, there is ■ groat change in all your pioapectf, Walter.' • Is— is my father dead ?' 'He ii,' said Daly solemnly, utterly surprised by the question, for Mr Clint's death had not been in the least likely, according to the former letters they had received. Walter caid no more, but covered his face with hii hands, and lav quite ttill. ' This must be a groat shock to you,' Daly began, after a long pause ; but then Walter interrupted him. ' 1 don't thixk it is, Lawrence. I cannot explain, or understand why, but in some strange »a;, during my fever, I think I knew it. I tried to tell you once or twice, but I could not be certain whether I knew it, or had dreamed it. However, that may be, it if not a ihock to me. My poor father ! It was not a happy life. I trust it ended better. And now, he cannot forgivo me, and 1 cannot tell him I was not the bad fellow he believed me. It is all too late.' Daly was not sorry to see that there wero tears in Walter's eyes, and that his lips were trombling. llt is not too late. ThU is the mrprising news that I have known all the time you were in the fever, and have so longed to tell you. It was your wife who was with your father in his last days, and she told him all the truth, and got from bim his forgiveness for you, and his blessing for herself.' ' Good God I Florence with my father — and she told him ?' 1 Yes, she told him ; like the brave, true woman she is, and so saved you both from the burden of self-reproach and egret. She is the wisest, as she is the best of women. "Here are her letters : I opened this one — marked immediate —when you were in the earliest stages of the fever, because I had seen the announcement of your father's death in a newspaper which came with the letters.' Daly put the packet into Walter's hand. He looked at the letters ; the seal of one was yet unbroken, but he could not vet open them. ' What has become ol her ?' he naked. ' Tell me.' Dalv told him. He related the contents of Florence's narrative, not, indeed, in ttw words of the wife, w hose sacrgif and self-sacrificing love had been fe freely poured out in the letter in w hich she summoned her husband home, that Lawrence felt as if he had been almost guilty of profanity in reading the words intended for those beloved eyes only j but clearly and convincingly. No more anxiety for Walter as to "what had become of his wife, from whom ho was bidden to accept his rightful inheritance. The brief nervousno^s. of aitonishm«nt, the brief bewilderment of mingled and tontending feelings, passed rapidly away, and Walter was nblo to read the letters, which gave him a clear account of all that had happened, but from which ho gathered that theie had been one, of urgent importance, written by Florence, ■which he had never received. She spoke of her great anxiety for the arrival of his permission to tell his father the truth, in reply to her letter, in which she bad repeated to Walter Mr Martin's warning. That letter had not reached him. Had not Florence obeyed her instinct, with what bitterness the good fortune which had befallen them muit have been dashed ! The fir«t bewildering emotion subdued, Walter and his friend talked freely of the prospects thus changed, and of the future, so unlike any they had thought of. Daly told Walter bow hard he had found it to keep all this news to himself, while awaiting the moment of convalescence in ■which it might be safely imparted ; and how anxiously he bad looked for some disposition on his part to ask questions, and take up life once more from the active side. At this Walter smiled languidly, and said that he had not thought much of anything past, present, or future ; there had been tangible impressions floating about him, but not thoughts, like that one about his father's death, and he had not been able to feel anxious; he fancied anxiety was a doubtful privilege of be»Hb, and vanished before illness. At least he had not been able to feel it, either about himself or any one else ;it had awoke on behalf of Florence only with Lawrence's wordi. Even now, there was no impatience in his mind. Daly, while he could not resist the pleasure of talking and letting him talk about the Firs, about his childhood, and his boyhood there, about all that he and Florence would now do to render tho place pretty and pleasant ; in all which plans the presence of Daly w as an understood thing — was afraid of the effect upon Walter. Now he would surely begin to count the intervening hours, and to fret at the remains of weakness, and the necemrv delay before beginning the return journey. But the day wore on, and the young men still discussed tho strange turn of their fortunes, and there was no nervous excitement about Walter to justify Daly's apprehensions.

According to J. Scheuszlcder, watchmakers and engravers harden their tools in sealing-wax. The article is made whitehot and thrust into sealing-wax, allowed to remain a moment, then withdrawn and thrust into another place, and this treatment is continued until the steel is cold, and will no more enter the wax. The hardness thus attained is extreme, and comparable to that of the diamond ; in fact, steel hardened in this way may be used for boring or engraving eteel hardened by other processes, tho tool being preriously moittened with oil of turpentine.