humour. TOO LUXURIANTLY FLY.

Waikato Times, Volume XIX, Issue 1624, 30 November 1882, Page 2 (Supplement)

humour.

TOO LUXURIANTLY FLY.

" I have been waiting for you, Rupert." Desdemona M'Caffery 'was a witching, strawberry blondo, with di-eamy, brown eyes, and a large, voluptuous foot, that attracted attention wherever she went. Careless and trifling in most tilings, and little recking whenever she had pie or radishes for breakfast, her love for Rupert Hetherington was the one absoibing passion of her life. When he wai by her side, life was like a beautiful day in June, with the flowers blooming, the bright sunshine gladdening every nook, and the balmy breath of early summer making sweet perfume of the zephyrs that came softly from the azure-blue skies, and kissed the warm blossom of the verdureclad earth. " I am never unhappy when you are with me, darling," she said, nestling her head on Rupert's shoulder ; "but when you are away everything is dreary, and dismal, and forlorn. Did it never occur to you of what antagonistic emotions the life j of a woman is made up ?" "It never did," replied Kupert. "I have been too busy this spring trying to figure out whether Irqquois would win a race." For an instant there was silence. The lowing of the cattle in the distant meadows, and the twittering of the swallows, as they circled round the eaves of the house preparatory to turning in for the night, were the only sounds to be heard. Presently Desdemona spoke again. " But it is so, Rupert," she Baid. " Flame and ice, poison and perfumo, smiles and tears, roses and upas, passion and abnegation — these are what the gods cast into the caldron from which came woman." " But your sex is fickle, is it not ?" said Rupert. " You know the old saying, ' Woman, thy name is Flaherty.' " Desdemona looked at him steadily a moment. " I presume you refer," she said, in cold, better-come-in-before-your-ears-are-frozen tones, " to the lino which reads, ' Frailty, thy name is woman !' " " I guess likely," was the reply, " but I really cannot see why women should buck-jump around so much." "It is because you do not understand their nature. A woman loves some man with a mad, unreasoning love. She is only a girl— a frail, passionate, moody girl, whose heart is a lute for every wind to play upon ; who i» torn to pieces with the i fury of her own strivings ; who follows love forever and forever throughout this world, only to see it flicker, and beckon, and allure, and fade away like the will-o'-the-wisp ; who sees love grow paler with every lovely day that dies on the horizon's purple rim ; who in the sleepless midnights looks renunciation in the face with dry eyes; who walks hand-m-hand with a sorrow that might so easily wear the stars of joy" — and, with a convulsive sob breaking from her lips, the girl turned to enter the house. Rupert stopped her. " You are off your feed, my darling," he said, in the low, musical tones he knew so well how to use when a woman's love was to be won, or the unexpected advent of three aces, in a jack-pot announced. " You will be better in the fall, sweetheart, the golden-tinted fall, when the leaves are turning brown, and the Racine Country Agricultural Association gets out those beautiful, mezzo-tinted posters announcing its annual soiree of live stock." "Do you really think so, Rupert?" the girl asks, putting her arms arotmd his neck, and looking at him with a wistful, how-do-you-think-you'd-feel-if-papa-was-to-heave-in-sight look. "Why, of course I do, my angel," he replies, bending over to kiss her once more for the cigars. " And would you do anything in your power to make me happy?" — and again the yearning, anxious, somebody-hold-the-dog expression comes into the dusky eyes from which the tears are wel- " My love," he says, speaking slowly, and with an earnestness that shows how grave the subject is to him, " you know that for your dear sake I 'would brave any danger, make any sacrifice that man can make. ♦ You know that your happiness is mine, that to win a smile from your sweet face hell could furnish no torture I would not endure ; you 'know that, in * pinch, I would even " " Enough !" said Desdemona, a glad smile fluttering on her Calumet avenue lips. •* I will test your love." "Do so," was Rupert's reply. " Let me prove my love, as the Crusaders of old did, by some noble, manly action. ' lam ready for the test, no matter how terrible it may be," and his jure, young face lighted up with a rapturoui Schuyler Colfax smile. Desdemona kissed him tenderly. " I knew you would not fail me, my own true love," she murmured., "Youmaybrxng them to the house this BV "Brfng what?" asked Rupert. "I do not understand you" . „ " You will catch on before the summer is over, came the reply, in clear, incisive tones. " I mean two' tickets to the matinee—an d the beautiful eirl stepped into the house. ' With -a dull pain at his heart, Kupert went away. " I'm o'er young to marry,' he said softly to himself, "and tod luxuriantly fly to begm .buying matinee tickets ,in , Juna. —Chicago !> TribtiiPJii '„ I _ '; t -,'■.*,- ■ ," ''■ . ■"'■' J, $aV*iIB_TWAI»^ ANDMiIpENONIS, \i^A%]liifliaji'M?G'uire spoke these words, she looketl, 'm^lßupe«lHel^ewng&'s'fface^iK/fier J sj«S^l

for her to speak again. vW «.^ , "Do you not thiuk it js'lorely/ darling ?" \ •'What?" asked Rupert; with an ingenious, Owl Club expression on the perfect features of bis , West side face. ' ; ' ■ "'-, - v ■ 11 Why, the morning, to bo sure," replied the girl, a sunny, , six-button sinilo playing* lightly around her lips, as if afraid it might fall inlj "jJThe twittering of the biuta, those silvohthroatodjharbingers of summer,* i» to be hoard on-Wery branch and bough. "The "air is laden ,witli 'thoyrolicate perf nine of lilac and applo-blossom, while the dowkissed leaves of yon Bturdy maple leflcct a little of the crimson and gold of the rising sun. Spring lias been a sad laggard, but now that she has come in all her glory of bud and blossom, what can be more beautiful?" " I can not tell you," replied Rupert. " You are far too fly for me, dearest, when such matters are to be discussed. But in the dreamy, sensuous days of autumn, when the tassled corn hangs npe in the sheaves, and the llaves have felt the blighting touch of the Forest King's icy breath I am more liable to get there. Mine, as yon know, is a sensitive, Sedgwick-Btrect nature, that shrinks from contact with a cold and cruel world. To. me the spring has naught of joy. The low, mellow noto of the new milch-cow chasing a butcher's waggon, in which her offspring nneaßily reclines, seems to mo like the wail of a lost soul, and weird fancies crowd my brain as I hear at midnight the mournf ul hoot of the owl, flitting like some evil spirit amid the desolate precincts of the village churchyard." v " It is your liver, darling," niumiured Lillian. " I sometimes think so," was the roply. " Ever and anon the thought comes over me like a black demon of the nighHhat lam off my feed. But it cannot, must not 'be. Yet in the autumn all is changed. The soft mezzo-tints of tho pumpkinpie fall gracofully on my eye, and all nature, laughing in tho fruitago of an abundant harvest, seems joyous and free from care. It is to toll you this that I have come around so early this morning—to tell you that in the months that are to come, tho scorching days of mid-summer, when tho sun, hanging like a ball of molten brass in the sky, will send down its rays in pitiloss fury, you had better get another fellow— one who will love you dearly, as I havo done, and whoso memory you can ever cherish with gentle tenderness." "Bntjwhoni shall I get?" asked the girl, in an agonised tone. "I have thought of 'this, sweetheart, Rupert replied. " You can do no better than take George W. Simpson. He loves you dearly. I know it, because he has often told mo that he doesn't, and George can not tell the truth.", " I will do as you say," said tho girl, choking back a sob that was well up from hor breakfast. " And now good-bye." "So long," said Uupcit, kissing her as no The girl threw hor arms around his neck, kissed him with a passionate suction-pump kiss, and went into the house. Eupert walked around the corner, where he met George W. Simpson. " Did you fix it ?" asked George. " Yes," was the reply. " Which do I get, winter or summer ?' " Summer." ,„ , „ " Yon are in luck, as usual, old hoy. iney tell me she can beat the record eating ice-cream." "Yes," said Eupert, "but think of the oys- " True," replied George. " I had forgotten the oysters."— By Joseph Mcdill, in Chicago Tnbtint Novelist.