HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Wingham Times, 1888-02-10, Page 7TWO CHRISTMASES ;
OR,
THE MYSTERY OF THE HAUNTED GARRET,
CHAPTER VIL—(Co TI care)
We meet Leslie and Kathleen Carmiohael
coming out of St, Perpetua's just as wo go
in.; Leslie glances from me to myebompanion
with a jealous flash of her blue eyes and a
gaiole heightening of hor pretty oolour.
" So this is how you amuse yourselves,
you two 1 Aren't they very sly, Kathleen ?"
I take uo notice of the sneer, but answer
quietly---
" We Pet by aooident at the gate of the
fir wood.'
" Oh, pray. don't excuse yourselves 1" Les-
lie laughs, withea curious little triumphant
lock which pie ee mo, following so fast on
the jealousy. \{ Wo came to ask yon up to
look at all my pretty things, Joan ; the
boxes arrived from,London to -day."
I have no heart for looking at pretty
things, but I turn bank with them, wishing
my cousin good•nightat the gate.
"You don't care to look at finery, Hugh?"
Leslie Bays almost wistfully, as ahe puts her
little hand in its pretty long glove into his.
" I shall see them all some day," he
smiles down at hor kindly ; and then wo
turn up the road to the Rectory, and he
walks back to Grayacre.
The Carmichael girls po into ecstasies
over tho centents of Leslie's boxes. As for
me, I never before saw such beautiful
things. Kathleen persuades her to put on
some of the dresses for our benefit. Not
that she requires much persuasion ; I think
the child enjoys it.horself as much as any
of them. Some of the dresses came from
Paris, and are a revelation to me in their
billowy grape and elegance. There are
morning -robes, and walking -costumes, visit-
ing -dresses, tea -gowns, dinner -gowns, each,
as she shakes it from its careful folds,
seeming more lovely than the last. .Anne
loses her heart to a dinner -dress of ruby
silk and plush with ruffles of real point -lace
about the square•out bodice and short
sleeves ; Kathleen covets a ball -gown of
egg -shell -blue satin mervoilleuse and crepe.
I tnink the very prettiest' of all is a dark
dragoon -green velvet with• deep cuffs and
Dollar of Venetian lace. Leslie's own favor-
ite is what she persists in Dolling her Wed-
ding -dress. It is an• ivory brocaded satin,
the bodice and skirt trimmed diagonally
with exquisite old Frenoh !lace—Leslie is a
connoisseur about lace—and, having been
"evolved" by Worth himself, it fits her like
a glove and suits her to perfection.
7 shall never forget her appearance to only too glad to have you too. They are
night as she stands before the glass. Her the kindest and most hospitable people in
cheeks are flushed with excitement, her blue the world."
eyes radiant; she looks almost too ideally " I should like to go," I answer—truly I
lovely to belong to this world, with her ex- am afraid for myself if I remain here much
longer eating out my heart.
" Then that's settled. We'll get Sister
Elinor from London to take your place here,
and you will be all the more fit for your
duties when you come back ; and Kilarney
never looks better than in September, with
all the autumn tints blending with the
green of the arbutus, and the soft blue haze
on the hills and reflected in the lakes. By-
tho•b , was Leslie here this morning ?"
" No. You aro the first visitor we have
had to -day."
" She went out after breakfast to post a
letter, she said; and I thought after she had
posted it she might have Dome on to you."
I have seen nothing of her. Perhaps she
went to the churoh•praotioo."
"She may have joined Kathleen there.
Well, I must be off—it's time for luncheon,
and father's glass ofwine and biscuit.. I'll
look in again in the course of the day. And
lowish you'd take a glass of wine, Joan. It
would put some colour into your wretched
little white face."
Shekisses me affectionately ;she isagood-
natured creature, though her manner is a
little rough, and she has always proved a
staunch friend to me.
do it—you who had the name of being ouch
a rock of sense 2"
How indeed 1 Looking bank at the events
of the past eight months, I wonder how I
could have been so blind.
"It's too late to mond matters now,"
Anne gods on in a troubled tone. "But 1
don't envy the future Mrs. Hugh Tresilian,
if her husband has any idea that youcare
for him 1"
44 Hugh has more senna than I have, Anne.
He will soon forget any fancy he had for
nee."
" Do you think so ? Well, 1 don's. Mr.
Mr. Tressilian is as obstinate as a mule -I
knew it the first time I ever saw him.
You're both horribly obstinate—that's what
has done all the mischief. I wish somebody
would have the charity to open Leslie's eyes
before it is too late 1"
" Anne ! Let the poor ohild at least be
happy. She has done nothing wrong."
My dear, she would soon console her-
self with Algernon Nesbitt ; and she will be
a miserable woman as Mr. Tressilian's
wife,"
" I do not think so. Hugh is very good
and kind."
" Aud madly in love with—you 1"
" That, is all over," I say quietly, though
my heart echoes the assertion with a thrill
of exquisite pleasure—of passionate pain.
" Hugh is not so wicked as to love one wo-
man when he is married to another."
" But he loves you now. He can't help
himself."
" Do not let us talk about it, Anne. I
try even to think of it as little as I can."
" And are killing yourself in the pro-.
owe. De you ever look at your face in the.
glass ?"
" Of course I must, to see if my cap is
straight 1"
" And de you know that your cheeks are
as white as a snow -berry, and that your
ryes have grown twice too large for your
face ?"
" What a charming desoription 1"
" It's my firm opinion that you will die
if yon go on like this much longer."
"You are a Job's comforter !" I smile.
"Don't smile at me like that 1 You give
me the heart•ache ;" and Anne turns her
honest weather-beaten face to the window.
" Joan, will you oome to Killarney with me
when this precious wedding is over ? I've
been invited over to the South of Ireland
for six weeks and the Mahonya would be
ginning to feel frightened. "Do you think
she could, be at Grayaore without Hugh's
knowledge?"
"Ho did not seem to think it possible.
But we've sent Bob over to try. And Anne
has gone to the Droughts. We thought it
just; on the verge of possibility that she bad
gone to say good-bye to old Mrs. Drought."
It is very alarming. Whatever oho has
done, with herself, it was very wrong of the
ohild to go away without letting somebody
know where she was to be found, or what
had become of her,
"I will start off to old Widow Hatchett's.
It is the last plane I can think of, and the
last plane where I'ehould expect to rind her;
but I know she took tea and hot cake with
the old woman once or twice—she had a
fancy for her picturesque little cottage, and
the cat and kittens. And, if I find her, I'll
shake her well for giving us all such a
fright."
Kathleen rushes away, and for a whole
hour I stand at the window, hoping for a
message from the Rectory to tell me the
truant has turned up, safe and well. But
no messenger domes ; and, though I know
Leslie will have a fine laugh at us all for
our folly by-and-by, I am beginning to feel
exceedingly anxious—it is so odd of her to
spend this last day away from us all.
It is growing dark when I put on my bon-
net and cloak at last and set out for the
Rectory, unable any longer to endure the
suspense. But here I find them in a state
of consternation. Logics cannot be found•.
They have searched for her high and low;
the police are scouring the country—they
are even—horrible thought !—dragging the
pond between the garden and tho wood at
Grayacre, fearing that her foot may have
slipped on the bridge. They say Hugh is
quite distracted, and Kathleen, (between
Drying and laughing in an hysterical way,
says it is only a version of the " Mistletoe
Bough." But there are no 'old oak ohests
at the Rectory in which the bride could
have hidden herself, though there are plen-
ty in the garrets at Grayaore.
It is impossible even to conjecture what
oan have become of the child. Her room
at the Rectory is just asusual ; she has taken
nothing out of it, so far as we can discover ;
none of her clothes are missing but the hat
and braided pelisse she had on when she
went out to post her letter. All her boxes
and trunks are :piled up in the lobby, her
dressing -case is on her toilet•table, all her
pretty things are scattered about—fans,
essence -bottles, little perfumed gloves.
" Something must have happened to her 1"
Anne repeats for the hundredth time, with
a blank look about the room.
" Hero is the poet 1" Kathleen exclaims.
But it is without much hope of the poet
bringing any elucidation of the mystery that
we all wait while she runs down to open the
door. She comes running back however
with a letter addressed to herself in Leslie's
handwriting.
" Open it 1" she says, giving it to her
sister ; and Anne opens it with fingers that
shake a good deal.
" Read it !" Kathleen says again, breath-
less with excitement.
Anne reads it aloud. It is very short,
but very much to the point.
quisite innocent face, and aureole of golden
hair, and delicate shining raiment. How
her husband will admire hor in that dress
"some day" ! Happy, happy Leslie !.
The thingsjare put away attlast—the dain-
ty embroideredunder-garments, the fans,
the laces, the ribbons, the gloves ; the
• Carmichaels lay them ad back in `their
places with careful admiring touches, and
then we all go down -stairs to tea.
I try to seem as gay as the rest around
that merry table. Because I had spoilt my
own life, must I throw a shadow on Leslie's
happiness—must I mourn because the man
whose heart I went so . near breaking has
learned to do without me ? But I feel old.
When I smile, my smile must seem very
forced ; if I laugh, I am sure they would
all turn round and stare at me. I am glad
when tea is over, and we go into the draw-
ing -room to hear Anne sing.
She sings the "Good-bye" which Hugh
asked for on the last evening I spent in
this house, and, as if he were speaking the
words to me, I sit in my shady corner and
listen.
"Hush—a voice from far away !
'Listen and learn,' it seems to say—
' All the to -morrows shall be as to -day ;
The cord is frayed, the cruse is dry,
Tne link mutt break, and the lamp miist'die: '
Good-bye to hope— good-bye, good-bye 1"
Now sing something lively," Leslie sug-
gests, in her gay young voice, when the song
ended.
.but the lively inusio jars upon me, and I
am glad when Bob and Charlie come in and
offer to escort me home. Leslie seems to
have forgotten her momentary pique, for
she had been as cordial as ever all the even-
ing—is even more cordial than her wont, I
fancy, as she wishes me good night.
It is very late, or rather early in the
morning, before I go to bed in my little
formal, cheerless room. I have one of my
bad paroxysms—on my, own account this
time, for I hope Hugh is getting over hie
heart -break, he looked and spoke so like
himself this evening. ' He could scarcely
have feigned such composure even to sweet-
en the bitterness of my self-reproach. I
hope he is beginning to caro for the fair;
haired child who is to become his wife the
day after to -morrow ; I pray for it as I
kneel by my open window while the east
grows gray with the dawn of his wedding -
eve.'.
CHAPTER VIII., AND LAST.
At about ono o'clock in the afternoon of
the following day Anne Carmicbael comes
over to the hospital to pay me a visit.
" Well, Joan, how did you get home last
night ?"
" Very well," I answer, going forward to
meet 'her.
"You don't look very well. What is the
mattes' with you ?"
" I did not sleep last night."
"'Hem 1"'Anne says, looking at me.
u I am afraid the weather is going to
change. We had some rain this morning."
"'Leslie won't be pleased if it rains to
morrow. Joan, I am afraid iyou have made
ati awful donkey of yourself 1'
I stare at hor in astonishment.
" You.never chose to taste ins intoyour
confidence, but I found out enough for my
self to make a good guess at the rest. Still
I never thought you cared."
"I am not surprised at that. You could
scarcely know what I did not know myself,"
I answer, with a curious little smile.
"Bub I believe yen do care—I believe
"that's what is making you look like the
ghost of your old self 1 Joan, how could you
be Boh a 661 2"
Milan Carmichael's manner is brusque, bat
her facts aro incontrovertible.
"You cannot Call me worse names thand
pall myself," I answer, turning my fade to
Window,
"'This is a bad business," ahe says, atar,
Ing at me blankly. 44Jean, how menld you
affairs on hand, as usual, but she is begin-
ning to look old and weather-beaten, as
people with her hair and ruddy complexion
very often do while they are still oompara-
tively young. But she and I are as good
friends as ever, and I spend two or three
evenings every week at the Rectory, obiefly
for the pleasure of hearing Anne sing.
On Christmas Eve I walk over to Gray-
acre,
rayacre, through the fir wood and over the
wide snowy fluids, my old dog following at
my heels. It is a crisp cold afternoon, the
sky without a cloud, the air pleasant from
its vary atillmeas. The "ry snow crackles un-
der my feet; the pond is fr:rzen right across
one sheet of steel -gray ice froth margin to
margin; all the shrubs and hedges are
bending ('under their load . of snow. The
old house itself looks like a Twelfth -Night
cake with its spotless icing ; and, as for the
flowerbeds, they are obliterated—there is
nothing but one smoothe sweep of spotless
whiteness from the windows to the laurel
hedge.
I have a present for old Dorothy—a pretty
woollen petticoat I knitted for her myself.
but I cannot find Dorothy in the kitohen or
in her own room—I do not see anybody
about the house. If I had not found the
front door ajar, I might have knocked and
rung till I was tired. I suppose the young -
maids are out milking in the byre ; but I
cannot think what has become of Dorothy:
The shutters are all open and the blinds
drawn up ; but there is no Christmas green-
ery in the old hall, no fire on the hearth.
Failing to find Dorothy, I open the door of
the oak parlour and walk in, determined to
wait here till I hear some voice or footstep
down -stairs.
There is a fire in the wide grate, and the
room wears almost its old pleasant home-
like look. And in the chair beside the fire,
with his back towards me, sits a figure
whose dark shapely head and broad should-
ers I think I know.
"Hugh 1"—" Joan'!"
We are standing looking at each other,
hand clasped in hand in the old warm greet-
ing. He looks hale and hearty, his hair
and beard as close and dark, •hie akin as
brown as ever.
" What good fairy brought you here to-
day ?"
" I came on an errand of Saint Nicholas,
with a gift for Dorothy."
" Dorthy has gone off to light a fire in
the brown room, being troubled in her mind
about the damp, I think sho said." .
" And when did you arrive ?"-" This
morning at eleven." •
"To spend Christmas here, I hope?" • .
" Well, yes. I did not intend to go away
before tomorrow.
"And there is no holly or ivy up—"—
"Nor mistletoe 1"
"It is too bad, when the master has just
come home 1"
"It is too bad about the mistletoe."
" Well, but the mistletoe could scarcely
benefit you !"—laughing.
"A lonely old bachelor ! But I might
have visitors--" •
"You will not see muob of Grayacre un -
long you wait till the snow melts."
" I did not come to see Grayacre"—with
one of the old looks.
" Winder & Curtis wrote for you."
"Yes. But I have nothing to do with
Grayaore. I want to make them understand
that, once for all."
" But it is yours. You cannot help your-
self."
"Can't I? We shall see"—" Bat, Hugh
lite worth living ; but" Yes" now
with my head on Hugh Tressilian's breast.
f' My darling," he whispers, stooping to
kiss me for the second time in his life, " I
wondetifeygeu are half as happy as you have
made ins 2"
" I am very happy,"
"And Grayaore is yours again."
I do not want Grayacre"---laughing.
44 When shall we be married, Joan 2'
" Whenever you like."
" This day week then."
And that day week we were married,
while the Christmas decorations are still
green in the oldchurch and the nun shines
on fields and woods still glittering white
with snow,
CV= END.1
The Next War Between France
and Germany.
The military editor of La France com-
plains of the receipt of several letters in
which he is accused of taking too favor-
able a view of the military power of the
French republic, and of almply putting his
wishes into the form of realities.
" The Germans are more numerous and
stronger than we are," the writers tell him,
" and if war were to break out tomorrow
we would be beaten, just as we were in 1870."
But he evidently does not agree•with them.
" Our mobilization,"he saps, "can no longer
have secrets for anybody after the experi-
ence, even incomplete, that was had last
autumn with the army corps of Toulouse.
Is it not true that the cavalry regiments
were ready to move at the appointed time,
and that the infantry and artillery and an
branches of the service were in motion on
the fifth day? It is so true that every citizen
of Toulouse oan testify to it, and the Ger-
mans know it as well as we do. This
simple fact goes to prove that the .army is
ready, and that it can be transported to any
part of the frontier as rapidly as the German
troops can arrive there, and that on the
frontier our troops can open fire when they
get out of their care just as easily as they
did in parade on the green hills of Naurouse.
" It is said that the Germans can arrive
quicker and in greater numbers than we
can. That we don't believe ; but, if they
gained a few, hours. or even an entire day,
the fact of the campaign would in no wise
be compromised, no matter what strategists
in the Chamber or shortsighted chauvins
may say to the contrary. But are the Ger-
man soldiers more numerous tnan ours ?
We say no, regretting that a false patrio-
tism compels us to hold back the simple
evidence within our reach. No, the Ger-
mans connot be more numerous than we are
'at the rendezvous preceding the great battle
which will be fought somewhere in the
valley of the Meuse, upon the right bank or
the left, which -ever it may be. At the point
where tho champions will meet, under con-
ditions sensibly identical, the victory will
be with those who will have the most pluck.
That is certain. The question then is re-
duced to a comparison of. pluok. If we have
the pluck we will be victorious, and if we
don't possess it, the great size of our batta-
lions won't prevent ue from being devoured
by the enemy.
" It is also said that the Italians will in-
vade the valley of the Rhone at the same
time that the Germane come into that part
of the Meuse. Maybe. But, at it id con -'"c
siderably further from Turin to Grenoble or
Lyons than from Metz to Verdun, it is be-
yond a doubt that the preliminary battles
will be fought, won or lost upon the Meuse
before the Italians can cross the Alps ; and
it is also beyond question that if we are Vic-
tors on the Meuse, the Italians, who are sen-
sible and prudent people, won't advance
very far in the valley of the Rhone in an of-
fensive warfare that would become for them
big with perils. Therefore, it is necessary
to be the strongest at the Meuse. We mast
win the first battle, after which we will be
numerically strong enough to invest Stras-
bourg, as it may be taken for certain that
when we shall have arrived there, it will
not be the bourgeois of the landsturm nor
the Italian militia that wil roll back our
victorious armies.
" Therefore, we have the profound con-
viction that, practised, drilled, and com-
manded as we are aud'as we will be, we
must win the first battle ; and for this rea-
son we oughtto view all eventualities with-
out fear."
" Dear Kat,—I pont this that you may
get it to -night, before you frighten your -
seine to death about me. I am quite safe
and well, and before you ;het this shall be
Mrs. Algernon Nesbitt. I hope Hugh
Tressilian will console himself with some-
body he likes a great deal bettor than he
ever liked me. And some day or other I
hope I shall see you all again. I shouldn't
wonder , if Algernon bought old Doctor
Murray out and settled at Grayacre ; if
that's the case, 1 might as well have saved
myself the trouble of all those dresses 1 How-
ever, please send my trunks to the Grand
Hotel, , Charing Cross, and believe me as
ever,
'The day wears on, the hours pass—the
last few nours when I can think of Hugh
Tressilian without sin. To -morrow he will
be Leslie's husband, from that day forward
to have and to hold till death do them part.
Ta -day I may reoall his passionate words,
his tender looks—the one kiss given me in
the shadow of the sighing pines. I may re-
call the old days at Grayacre, when I rul-
ed my house and him so royally, when
I was a person of consequence, when,
though I did not acknowledge it, I
felt him to be my master, guest of mine
though he was, and ready to bow to my
most arbitrary command. How happy we
were, we two together, walking about the
farm and the old fashioned sweet-smelling
garden with its screens of box and yew and
beds of stook and sweet-william and bushes
of rosemary and lavender 1 And what rides
wo had through tho autumn lanes and the
mossy pastures, what walks in the clear
frosty weather, when Hugh had said my
hair and eyes were exactly the same colour
as my sealskin -coat 1 And then our pleasant
evenings in the oak parlour, our games of
chess and dominoes!, $ugh's reading aloud
of The Arid on the Floss and Adam Bede,
while I knitted his long ribbed shooting
stockings ! If I had only known my own.
happiness then ! But I did not know it.
thought I could live my own life ; I thought
myself sufficient for myself. Hugh said to
me once that no man or woman was suffi•
tient for his or her own happiness in this
world. I had not believed him then; but I
believe it now.
The cloak in the children's ward is on the
stroke of four when Kathleen Carmichael
comes running up the stairs.
Is Leslie here 2" she ories, looking round
the room. '
" No. Whys ?"—" Because wo can't find
her anyWhero.'
" Can't find her 2"
" Nobody has seen her since she left the
post-oii!ee 'at eleven o'clock to -day 1 We
can't imagine what has become of her 1"
" Very likely she has gone over to Gray-
aore."
"No -•Because 11Ir, Tressilian was at our
house just note with eny father -something
about the certificate—and ho knew nothing
about her,"
"Could sho have walked to Cecil? Harriet
Eames said she wanted to see her again,yoti
know."
"Mr, Tressilian has ridden on to Cecil
to inquire. But I don't think alto would
ever have started off without telling es or
asking dome of us to go with her. It is
emuite five miles round by the road, and
Leslie would never have crossed the fields,
she is so afraid of the COWL"
"It Is moot extraordinary 1" 1 Nay, be -
"Your affectionate friend,
" LaSLIE CREED."
* * * *
Christmas again—it white Christmas such
as I have always loved since I was a child 1
It is two years since the memorable
Christmas Eve on which my uncle's will was
found in the haunted garret, nearly two
years since Elugh Tressilian asked me to
marry him, in the fir wood.
I havenot been idle during those two
years. My little hospital has prospered.
I have worked hard and seen the fruit of
my labour ; two new wingshave been add-
ed to the original building—my name and
fame have been sounded far and wide about
the country. But what pleases me more, I
have been instrumental in saving many
lives and alleviating much suffering, I have
amoothed the pillows under many a dying
head, and'had many a blessing called clown
upon me by dying lips whose passage from
earth to heaven I have robbed of much of
its bitterness as well as some of its restless
pain.
There is nobody living at Greyacre; the
house is shut up, with old Dorothy oma the
Footers in charge. Hugh Tressilian has been
in Canada for nearly a year and a half now
—ever since Leslie ran away with Algernon
Nesbitt., He came to bid me goodbye at
the hospital a few days afterwards ; he
looked stern and worn and anxious, but he
made no moan to me—he never mentioned
Leslie's name. He indeed was only a few
minutes in the house, and Iiathleen Car-
michael happened to he present all the time.
He just wished mo good-bye, standing before
me with his hat in his hand, his horse wait-
ing outside the door ; and 1 Ileac neither
seen him nor heard from him from that day
to this.
* * *
"There is only one condition on which I
could take the place."
" And that ?"—a. little eagerly. I fancy
he thinks some further renunciation neces-
sary from me— some more open acquiescence
in or approval of the terms of my uncle's
will.
"I will tell you. afterwards. Now sit
down and iet us talk of old times."
"He pushes forward a comfortable old
leather -covered chair, and there in the fire-
lightwesit and chattoeachother almost as we
used to dotwo years ago. And inthe pauaesof
our talk 1 look about the familiar room—
at thefirelight dancing on the polished
panels, on the old-fashioned silver which
Dorothy has brought out and ranged on the
sideboard, on the dusky pictures of my an-
cestors, which seem to smile and frown in
the alternate light and shadow. And once'
or twice I steal an undetected glance at my
cousin's swarthy face, with its dark eyes
and resolute thin, and sunburnt forehead,
and wonder vaguely if he sees as little change
in me as I do in him. Except that there
are a few streaks of silver in the thick beard
and moustache, and that the face looks a
little graver, for all the difference in his ap-
pearance the last two years might have been
only a dream.
- Dorothy comes hi with tea before I get
up to go away; and then my cousin and I
leave the warm pleasant room and step out
into the frosty twilight, Hugh in his old
tweed cap and gaiters, or others very like
thein, I in my prim hospital cloak and bon -
not, which I suppose Hugh thinks as ugly
and unbecoming as over, though he refrains
from disparaging remarks about them now.
We cross the fields, chatting away very
gaily. Hugh seems in high spirits, and, as
for me, the joy of Boeing him, of hearing his
voice, snakes me forget everything else. Tho
fir wood is like a picture, the dark stems
and branches showing out against the snow
on the ground and the delicate blue mist in
the hollows. The sun has set, but a broad
band of saffron still lingers in the west,
with one star hurting above it.
"Have you thought of me in all these
months, Joan?" -
It is the first allusion he has made to our
love -story, and my heart begins to beat fast,
though my voice is very quiet as I answer,
smiling -
"Certainly I have thought of you., How
could I help it ?"
" I have never forgotten you for one mo-
ment."
"Itis so easy to say that !"—laughing a
little.
" You don't believe mo I" •
" I never moused you of telling stories 2"
"But I accused you, Woll, Jean, I want
you to tell me the tenth now if yen have
never told it before in your life. Do you
love me still ?'
"Do I love you 1",
" Do you love me as I love you with all
my heart acid soul 2"
He 'stretches out his arms. There hi the
shadow of the fir wood, where our hearts
were so nearly broken; he takes me and
holds me to his breast.
"Joan, you lost Grayaore by one word ;
you can recover it by one word—and make
ins forget all my grief and pain, Will you
marry me 1"
I said "No" to him once in this very
spot, and in Baying it host all that made my
But he is coming to England—ho may be
at Grayacre in a few days, for aught I
know. Winder & Curtis have written for
him—his presence is absolutely necessary
on legal business connected with the pro-
perty; I have utterly and entirely refused
to act, It grieves me to think of the dear
old house shut np and deserted!; but it is
not mine. Ono word deprived me of it one
day in the fir wood. One word might re-
store it to me, if But that word will
never be spoken now. Even if Hugh
Tressilian still thinks of me, he Will think
of mo no longer when he sees me ; I am an
old woman, seven or eight years too old for
hien, He will marry some young girl cot,
young enough to be my daughter perhaps if
he Waite a feW years longer.
Leslie never Dame back to Grayaore. She
took 'her 'husband with her to America,
Kathleen Carmichael hears from them now
and then, and I doy'b think Lealie seems
Very happy. I am afraid Algernon Nesbitt
married her at least as much for the sake
of her sixty thousand pounds at for her
pretty time. Kathleen herself is engaged
to Dr. Murray's oldest son—a very old
attachment ; Anne has a couple of love
On the Cone of Vesuvius Bring
oan Eruptions.
Several times a minute the surface of the
tossed lava was rent by a violent explosion
of gases, which appeared to hurl the whole
mass of fluid'rock int, the air. Tho ascend-
ing column of vapor and lava fragments rose
as a shaft to the neight of several nundred
feet, Many of the tnaeses, which seemed to
rise with the ease of bubbles, were some
feet in diameter, and made a great din as
they orushed down upon the surface on the
southward -side of the crater. . They often
could be Been to fly into fragments as they
ascended. At the explosion the escaping
gases appeared transparent, a few score feet
above the point of escape the ejected column -
became a steel -gray color, and a little high-
er it changed to the characteristic hue of
steam. That it was steam sheltie, mixed
with other gases was evident wherever in its
whirling movements the vaporous columns
swept around the point of observation. The
chrious "washing -day" odor of steam was
perfectly apparent, together with a pungent
sense of sulphurous fumes suggestive of an
infernal laundry. The principal obstacle
arose from the violence of the shooks given
to the cone and propagated through the air
by the explosions, which made it extrembly
difficult to fix the attention on the pheno-
mena. The earthquakes attending each ex-
plosion were almost strong enough to shake
one from the ground, and the blow received
through the air was like that which tkose
familiar with mines have received when a
heavy chargo of gunpowder or dynamite is
exploded. The sensation is suoh as might
comp from being violently struck by a fea-
ther bed; not dangerous, but extremely die -
organizing to the wits. After about fifteen
minutes of,obsetvation a slight change of
the wind allowed the decending masses to
fall so near the point of view that it was
necessary 10 hurry away.
Mrs, Lydia Watson of Leiooster, Meese,
whose 101 at birthday' hasjust been celebrat-
ed, is in exeellent health. Her forwss erect,.
andshe has a fine appetite and dig fon. Juab
now she is considerably occupied with a
great-granddaughter, whose rodent arrival
has greatly interested her. If the young
metherwouldpermit, thograet•graeldmother
would assume full charge of the little girl,
r.�
c