NEVER DIE OF LOVE. against our bodies; there is a period of civil war; if the soul has strength, it conquers and rules thereafter. A week or two passed; Caroline's bodily and mental health neither grew worse nor better. She was now precisely in that state when, if her constitution had contained the seeds of consumption, decline or slow fever, those diseases would have been rapidly developed, and would soon have carried her quietly from the world. People never die of love or grief alone, though some die of inherent maladies which the tortures of those passions prematurely force into destructive action. The sound by nature undergo these tortures, and are racked, shaken, shattered; their beauty and bloom perish, but life remains untouched. They are brought to a certain point of dilapidation; they are reduced to pallor, debility and emaciation. People think, as they see them gliding languidly about, that they will soon withdraw to sick-beds, perish there, and cease from among the healthy and happy. This does not happen: they live on; and, though they cannot regain youth and gayety, they may regain strength and serenity. The blossom which the March wind nips, but fails to sweep away, may survive to hang, a withered apple, on the tree late into autumn; having braved the last frosts of spring, it may also brave the first of winter. We We can get nothing in this world worth keeping-not so much as a principle or a conviction-except out of purifying flame or through strengthening peril. We err, we fall, we are humbled; then we walk more carefully. We greedily eat and drink poison out of the gilded cup of vice or from the beggar's wallet of avarice; we are sick- 'Not now-not now. ened, degraded; everything good in us rebels-yes, look at me well: against us; our souls rise bitterly indignant parting legible thereon ?" ROBERT AND CAROLINE. Caroline was not unhappy that eveningfar otherwise; but as she gazed she sighed, and as she sighed a hand circled her and rested quietly on her waist. Caroline thought she knew who had drawn near: she received the touch unstartled: "I am looking at Venus, mamma. See! she is beautiful. How white her lustre is, compared with the deep red of the bonfires!" The answer was a closer caress, and Caroline turned, and looked, not into Mrs. Pryor's matron-face, but up at a dark manly visage. She dropped her watering-pot and stepped down from the pedestal. "I have been sitting with 'mamına' an hour," said the intruder; "I have had a long conversation with her. Where, mean time, have you been? Caroline, I have sought you to ask an audience. Why are those bells ringing?" "For the repeal of your terrible law-the orders you hate so much. You are pleased, are you not?" Yesterday evening at this time I was packing packing some books for a sea-voyage: they were the only possessions, except some clothes, seeds, roots and tools, which I felt free to take with me to Canada. I was going to leave you." "To leave me? To leave me?" Her little fingers fastened on his arm; she spoke and looked affrighted. 66 Examine my face is the despair of She looked into an illuminated counte- I have made her suffer, all that long pain I nance whose characters were all beaming, have wickedly caused her, all that sickness though the page itself was dusk; this of body and mind she owed to me? Will face, potent in the majesty of its traits, she forget what she knows of my poor amshed down on her hope, fondness, delight. bition, my sordid schemes? Will she let me "Will the repeal do you good-much expiate these things? Will she suffer me good, immediate good?" she inquired. to prove that, as I once deserted cruelly, trifled wantonly, injured basely, I can now love faithfully, cherish fondly, treasure tenderly?” "The repeal of the orders in council saves me. Now I shall not turn bankrupt; now I shall not give up business; now I shall not leave England; now I shall be no longer poor; now I can pay my debts; now all the cloth I have in my warehouses will be taken off my hands, and commissions given me for much more. This day lays for my fortunes a broad, firm foundation on which, for the first time in my life, I can securely build.” His hand was in Caroline's still; a gentle pressure answered him. "Is Caroline mine?" "I will prize her. The sense of her value is here, in my heart; the necessity for her society is blended with my life; not more jealous shall I be of the blood whose flow Caroline devoured his words; she held his moves my pulses than of her happiness hand in hers; she drew a long breath: and well-being." "And I also, for your sake." She looked her way; these hands will be the gentle up devoutly. 66 ministrants of every comfort I can taste. I know the being I seek to entwine with my own will bring me a solace, a charity, a purity, to which of myself I am a stranger." 'Now I can take more workmen, give better wages, lay wiser and more liberal plans, do some good, be less selfish. Now, Caroline, I can have a house-a homewhich I can truly call mine, and nowHe paused, for his deep voice was choked. SHIRLEY'S INTERVIEW WITH HER UNCLE "And now," he resumed-" now I can think of marriage, now I can seek a wife." This was no moment for her to speak: she did not speak. Will Caroline, who meekly hopes to be forgiven as she forgives-will she pardon all AFTER HER REJECTION OF SIR PHILIP. Mr. Sympson had been out to while away an anxious hour in the society of his friends at De Walden Hall. He returned a little sooner than was expected; his family and Miss Keeldar were assembled in the oak parlor. Addressing the latter, he requested her to step with him into another room: he wished to have with her a "strictly private interview." She rose, asking no questions and professing no surprise. "Very well, sir," she said, in the tone of a determined person who is informed that the dentist is come to extract that large double tooth of his from which he has suffered such a purgatory this month past. She left her sewing and her thimble in the window-seat, and followed her uncle where he led. Shut into the drawing-room, the pair took seats, each in an arm-chair placed opposite, a few yards between them. and returning to his customary wordy, confused, irritable style—“I mean to have a thorough explanation. I will not be put off. I-I shall insist on being heard, and onon having my own way. My questions must be answered. I will have clear, satisfactory replies. I am not to be trifled with. Silence! It is a strange and an extraordinary thing-a very singular-a most odd thing! I thought all was right-knew no other; and there! the family are gone." "I suppose, sir, they had a right to go.' "Sir Philip is gone!" with emphasis. Shirley raised her brows. "Bon voyage!" said she. "This will not do; this must be altered, He drew his chair forward; he pushed it back; he looked perfectly incensed and perfectly helpless. "I have been to De Walden Hall," said ma'am." Mr. Sympson. He paused. Miss Keeldar's eyes were on the pretty white-and-green carpet. That information required no response; she gave none. "I have learned," he went on, slowly"I have learned a circumstance which surprises me." "Come, come, now, uncle!" expostulated Shirley; "do not begin to fret and fume, or we shall make no sense of the business. Ask me what you want to know. I am Resting her cheek on her forefinger, she as willing to come to an explanation as waited to be told what circumstance. you; I promise you truthful replies." No answer. "You were both examining a cabinet. I saw it all; my sagacity was not at fault it never is. Subsequently, you received a letter from him. On what subject-of what nature-were the contents?" "No matter." chair, and first rushed and then trotted through the room: "There it is! There it is! There it is!" "Sincerely speaking, I am sorry, uncle, you are so disappointed." Concession, contrition, never do any good with some people; instead of softening and "Ma'am, is that the way in which you conciliating, they but embolden and harden. speak to me?" Shirley's foot tapped quick on the carpet. "There you sit, silent and sullen-you who promised truthful replies!" them. Of that number was Mr. Sympson: "I disappointed! What is it to me? Have I an interest in it? You would insinuate, perhaps, that I have motives?" "Most people have motives of some sort "Sir, I have answered you thus far. Pro- for their actions." ceed." "I should like to see that letter." "You cannot see it." "I must, and shall, ma'am. I am your guardian." "Having ceased to be a ward, I have no guardian." "She accuses me to my face! I, that have been a parent to her, she charges with bad motives!" แ 'Bad motives I did not say." "And now you prevaricate. You have no principles." "Uncle, you tire me: I want to go "Ungrateful being! Reared by me as my away." own daughter-" I “Once more, uncle, have the kindness to keep to the point. Let us both remain cool. For my part, I do not wish to get into a passion, but you know, once drive me beyond certain bounds, I care little what I am not then soon checked. Listen. You have asked me whether Sir Philip made me an offer; that question is answered. What you wish to know next?" do say; "I desire to know whether you accepted or refused him, and know it I will." "Go you shall not; I will be answered. What are your intentions, Miss Keeldar ?” "In what respect?" "In respect to matrimony." 44 To be quiet and do just as I please.” "Just as you please! The words are to the last degree indecorous." "Mr. Sympson, I advise you not to become insulting; you know I will not bear that." "You read French. Your mind is poisoned with French novels; you have im "Certainly; you ought to know it. I re- bibed French principles." fused him." "The ground you are treading now returns Refused him! You-you, Shirley Keel- a mighty hollow sound under your feet. Bedar-refused Sir Philip Nunnely?" ware!" "I did." "It will end in infamy sooner or later; The poor gentleman bounced from his I have foreseen it all along." "It is evident I bewilder your brain." You talk of Sir Philip being young: he is two and twenty." "My husband must be thirty, with the sense of forty." "You had better pick out some old mansome white-headed or bald-headed swain.' 'No, thank you." "You could lead some doting fool; you might pin him to your apron.' "I might do that with a boy, but it is not my vocation. Did I not say I prefer a master-one in whose presence I shall feel obliged and disposed to be good; one whose control my impatient temper must acknowledge; a man whose approbation can reward, whose displeasure punish, me; a man I shall "I thought you liked to do as you please? feel it impossible not to love and very posYou are vastly inconsistent." When I promise to obey, it shall be under the conviction that I can keep that promise; I could not obey a youth like Sir Philip. Besides, he would never command me; he would expect me always to rule, to guide, and I have no taste whatever for the office." sible to fear?" |