Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 October 1885 — Page 6

ifI.K LOVKKS. BY BACHELOR EE-V. My fivsf, my very first, his na:r.e was Will—A i aiulsome fellow; fair, with curling hair. And lovely eyes. I have h s lock ;t still. He went to Galveston and settled there, Ai In st 1 heard so Ah, dear me—dear me! How terribly in love he used to be! The second. Roller! Kill, he told his love The first night that we met. ’Twas at a ball— A foolish boy. He carried off my glove. We sat out half the dances in the hall. And flirted in the meat outrageous way. Ah, me! how mother scolded all next day. The third woke up my heart. From night till morn, From morn till night I dreamed of him, 1 treasured up a rosebud he had worn; My tears and kisses made his picture dim. Strange that I cannot feel the old, old flame, When I remember Paul—that was his xame. The fourth and fifth were brothers—twins at that; Good fellows, kind, devoted, clever, too. ’Twas rather shabby to refuse them hat — Both in one day, but what else could I do? My heart was still with Paul, and he had gone Yacht sailing with the Misses Garretson! He never cared for me—l found that out— Despite the foolish clingings of my hope; A few months proved it clear beyond a doubt. i steeled my heart; I would not pine or mope, But masked myself in gayety, and went To grace bis w edding when the cards were sent. So these were all my loves. My husband? Oh, I met him down in Florida one fall— Itich, middle-aged, and prosy, as you know; lie asked me, I accepted: that is all, A kind, good soul; he worships me; but then 1 never ~ount him in with other men.

THERE’S DANGER IN DELAY.

BY STELLA GARD.

The sun had never shone upon so fair a J une. The skies were never so blue, the flowers so sweet, the breezes so soft, the hours so rosy. So thought Lorraine Lorrimer. She lifted her eyes to her companion’s face at that moment, and met his looking down at her. The eyes into which she looked were ordinarily laughing and blue, but their expression was intensified just now. Dark and soft, there was an electrical fasination in their gaze that caused the warm blood to tingle in her cheeks and flush over her forehead. Her eyes drooped swiftly. He smiled, and passed his hand caressingly over the small brown one that lay on his arm. They were not lovers, these two; they were “only friends,” as Lorraine w ould have said, then. They were pacing with slow, lingering footsteps a long country road, which was shaded by arching trees that met and embraced far above their heads. The air was charged with the odor of honeysuckle, and vibrant with the song of a lark which had escaped the ■coniines of mortal vision, and was heating its little heart out somewhere beyond the curtained fringes of foliage, in the depths of ethereal blue through which the setting sun was pouring a glory of gold and red; hut these facts, though instinctively recognized as fragments of the general harmony, made no very distinct impression upon the consciousness of either of them. That dusty highway, with its tall enclosing hedges and its whispering leafy avenue, might have contained the whole sum of life, so little they desired or thought of anything beyond it. But life holds more than a succession of peaceful footsteps, even on a fair June day. A few steps more brought them to a stile, and it had to be crossed. “You are tired,” said Hie young man. “Sit on this stile and rest awhile. I will not let you fall.” He leaned on the stile beside her, and held her hands, until his eye was attracted by some flowers that grew luxuriantly in the hedge on the opposite side of the road. “I must get you some of that woodbine,” he said; “I like the pale-colored bloom better than that tinged -with red; it is sweeter. Do not move until I return.” She sat still and watched him. He came back soon, with a fragrant, creamhued cluster in his hands. “Do you like them ?” he said, smiling up at her, and caressing her cheek with the dainty blossoms. Between them they fastened them into the folds of her fichu. Lorraine tried first, but her hands trembled, and the flowers fell, and were scattered into her lap. He smiled as he gathered them up, and held them while she secured them. “Everything is better done when we do it together, Lorraine,” he said, as he again folded her hands in his. “Shall we come home?” he asked softly. “I am ready,” she said. “Yes, Lorraine, we must go,” he answered ; yet still he lingered, while the sweet, nameless odors of the summer twilight hovered about them, the red flush of the sunset fell over them like a benediction, and the warm air palpitated with the last thrilling notes of the weary warbler as he sank toward Ms nest. “Lorraine, you look happy.” “I feel happy. Everything is so beautiful to-night, ” replied the girl, dreamily* “Yes, everything; the trees, the birds, the sky, the sun, the flowers, and- you. Lorraine, I don’t want to go home.” He drew closer, and again his eyes sought hers, with the subtle, indefinable magnetism in their depths which caused the color to stir so uneasily in her cheek. “Rex, we must go home,” she said, : nervously. “Come, then; let me lift you down.” “No, Rex; please don’t,” she said, i startled. “Why not?” he whispered. And •lifting her in his arms he held her close . and kissed her. * * * * * Eight weeks later, Lorraine stood in

her bed-room, reading a letter from Rex. Slie was paler and thinner than she had been in June, and there was a heavy, wistful look in her large eyes which then had been strange to them. She read the letter through twice, and then she put it down, .it was a customary thing for Lorraine and Rex to correspond, but this was the first letter he had written since they had met in June. It was a long leitor. A large part of it was filled with a halfserious, half-jesting apology for the long silence. “Yon will see,” wrote Rex, “that my holiday has been exacting all my time. ” “ ‘My holiday has been exacting all my time!’ ” Lorraine’s lip curled with something like contempt, of herself and of Rex, too. “How great must Rex's regard for me be!” she said; and then the memoi’y of the June evening which now seemed so very far away rushed upon tier, and the tears fell over her face like rain. At Christmas she saw Rex again. He came and went in the same day. “Lorraine,” he whispered as he bade her good-bv—“Lorraine, do not forget me!” and he was gone; while she stood trembling, with liis kiss warm upon her lips. For awhile Lorraine was happy. No word had Rex spoken, but the language of lip, and hand, and eye was unmistakable. Every gesture, every glance, every intonation said to Lorraine’s heart, “You belong to me, and I belong to you.” And Lorraine’s heart responded. That was enough. But week after week went by; Easter came and passed; Lorraine had many letters, but the one so constantly looked for never came. Lorraine sought distraction in study. Far oftenor than not, her light burned late into the night. Foolish, was it? Yes, very foolish. Young and eager spirits are so apt to be foolish until life’s stern discipline has taught them how best to be wise. By June, Lorraine was very ill. During- the first days of her illness came the letter which had tarried so long. “I hear that you have been ill,” it said; “I am sorry for that. You have been working too hard. If life is short, there is no need to deprive. one’s friends of one’s presence any earlier than is absolutely necessary.” He was sorry that he had kept her letter waiting an answer so long; he was always sorry for that. He spoke pleasantly of an anticipated holiday in Madeira. Between friends of no extraordinary degree, the letter would have passed muster; from Rex to Lorraine, at the hour of Lorraine’s extremity, it was heartless. Lorraine crushed it under her pillow, and turned her face to the wall. She knew the truth at last. It was not so much the loss of Rex that she grieved over. She could have borne that. She would have thought scorn of a love that placed its own happiness before that of its object. It was the loss of her faith that she mourned; the loss of her faith in Rex; and through him of her faith in all things human. She almost lost her faith m God. Ay, she did lose it for awhile. She groped in the darkness that shrouded her for a hand to hold by, and she found none. It was a bitter time for Lorraine.

And, meanwhile, what of Rex? He meant no harm. He had the best of intentions. He was hot wicked; onlyweak. The idol and darling of half the women he knew, perhaps he was a little careless of the mischief worked by his beautiful face, his bewildering smile, and rare charm of manner. Easy, luxurious, self-appreciative, it suited him to be worshiped by women. He liked change; it was a necessity of his nature. Change of scene, change of friends—these things eased life of its monotony. It pleased him to see fair faces flush and fair eyes droop at his eloquent glances and exquisitely modulated words—such study of human nature interested him. He possessed the faculty of attaching himself to people easily; but the large, long-suffering, high-souled love of a heart such as Lorraine’s was beyond his comprehension. When he was with Lorraine he was honestly “in love” with her—for the time. When he left her, his passion cooled. In his normal condition of mind, such an idea as that of allowing himself to be entirely appropriated by one woman seemed preposterous. Ten years later, Rex and Lorraine met again. It was again June; Rex was waiting for Lorraine in her own summer parlor. It was a pretty room —made beautiful by all the graces which a woman of refined nature and delicate tastes gathers about her instinctively. The years had brought Lorraine their success. The seed sown in sorrow and tears so long ago had brought forth an abundant harvest—as the world counts abundance. Lorraine had waked one morning to find herself famous; the finger of material want could never touch her while she had power to use her pen. To Rex, as he paced restlessly backward and forward in the pretty room, it seemed a loug time that he waited. At last lie heard a light, slow step, and the rustle of a woman’s dress. The quiver that ran through his strong frame told him that Lorraine was coming. The man’s very hands trembled. Half-way across the room she stoplied. He rose; and they stood and looked at each other. She held out her hand. Rex bent low over it, and touched it reverently with his lips. For a little they talked of old times, and of old friends whom they both had known. Then Rex said: “Lorraine, I have come with the hope that it is not yet too late for us to

live the old davs over again.” She read his meaning in his eyes. “Lorraine, we u ed to be happy together; let use be happy again. You think I have been long in coming; but tell me it is not too late. Let me claim what is mine—mine bv the right of love.” He stopped ner .ously. She looked so pale, so cold, as she sat there. But she did not speak. “Lorraine,” he continued, gathering courage from her silence, “you love your work, but it does not satisfy you. You are contented, but you are not happy. Your face tells me that. Do not refuse my love; be my wife; my life shall be spent in the care of yours. ; For the sake of our old friendship give me what I ask, Lorraine.” The words were warmly,passionately spoken, but they made no imjiression upon Lorraine’s marble calm. I "I am sorry you spoke of this, Rex,” j she said; “I have chosen my path in life, and chosen it deliberately; it is too late to change it now.” “Do you fear that I should not give you sympathy in your work ? Lorraine, my greatest, my most constant sym- | pathy shall be always witli you in this ! thing, as in all others. Ah, Lorraine! ; you used not to be so bard to move in j the old days. ” “Your sympathy would have been life to me then,” she said; “now I have learned to live without it. ” Rex’s forehead flushed, “Perhaps I have deserved this; I have deserved it; but you cannot think that I should not have come to you all the same now had I found you in different circumstances ? Lorraine! I wish I had. You would not have misjudged me then.” “No,” she said slowly, “I do not believe that. I never have thought that you intended to do me injustice, except perhaps at first. I have seen how it was for a long time now. You could not make up your mind, Rex. You disturbed our friendship—the friendship we were happy in—without being sure that you wished for anything more than friendship.” “And will you always bear me a grudge for that, Lorraine ? Can one interest so fill your life that you need no other ? The care and protection of husband and friend, the love of little children—are these things nothing to you? Lorraine, was your life meant to be so cold and loveless ?” Rex’s voice bad lost nothing of its old winning sweetness and persuasive power. A close observer might have seen an increase in Lorraine’s pallor, and her fingers closed round the arm of her chair with painful intensity. “I find no fault with my life; let that suffice for us both,” she said. “It is as useful a one as I ever have hoped to make it; more so; and I am perfectly happy in my work.” “I do not doubt that you are happy in your work. Heaven knows Ido not overestimate my own power to make you happy. But, Lorraine, it is a poor life, after all, that lives only for itself, and to itself, even in the noble way that yours is lived. If you allow other lives to starve for what you have it in your power to bestow, your life, live it liow you will, is still a wasted one.” “Is my life a wasted one?” she said, slowly; “I do not think it is.” “In one sense it is wasted, if not in another. Yours is a life of intellect merely; you live no life of heart; it is the union of the two that makes life complete Were hearts given us to be steeled to affection, Lorraine ?”

“You mistake,” Rex, she said gently; “there are other affections besides this one you speak of, and my life does not want these. But, in justice to you, let me tell you that ten years ago I lost a friend, ‘only a friend,’ that was dearer to me than anything on earth can ever be again. He is dead.” “A friend! And he is dead! Lorraine, will you permit the specter of a dead friend to come between you and my living love?” he said impetuously. “Hush!” she said. “You can have no conception of what his friendship was to me. No man’s living love could requite me for the memory of it. It is my most precious possession.” He was silent for a moment, almost awed by her tone, and her pale, lofty look. Then the sense of what he had lost rushed over him, and half maddened him. “Friendship!” he cried; “you are trifling with me. Tell me the truth, Lorraine; I demand it as my right that I should know; are you wasting your own life and spoiling mine over a fond and foolish fancy, or did you love this man, your friend?” The color rose into her fair, pale cheek, but she gazed at him with steady eyes. “It may be so; I cannot tell; it is not necessary that I should analyze ray feeling. It is enough that no earthly thing can ever come between me and that most sacred memory.” “Ah, Lorraine!” he said, sadly; “if I had died ten years ago you would have said that of me. Now you will allow a shadow to spoil our lives. Have you no little love for me left?” “Hush! Rex; is it I who have spoiled our lives?” “You used to believe in the old-fash-ioned notion of one love, and one only.” “One love; it is possible that it may be transferred,” she said. “At least, your love is not large enough to embrace ordinary human nature with its faults and follies,” he said, bitterly; “I have discovered that. The objects of your regard must be free from blemishes—faultless.” Her eyes lightened. “No, Rex; love does not regard faults. Believe me, I do not willfully refuse what you ask. But the friendship abused, the love slighted ten years ago, are beyond my power to recall. Spare me, Rex. Do you think I do not suffer also ? Does

it cost me notMng to deny you now what then I so gladly gave ?” Rex rose, and held out his hands. “There is no hope for me then, Lorraine? Ah! dear, give me the rightgive me the right that I want, for old iove’s sake,” he pleaded. She shook her head sadly. “There is only one thing that makes the bond of marriage tolerable,” she said, “and that between us two is impossible. The past can never be recalled. W'e are better apart. ”

Curious Features of Glaciers.

The periodical growth and decline of the frozen rivers of the Alps are the most remarkable and least understood of glacial phenomena. For nearly thirty years most of the Alpine glaciers have been diminishing. Many of them have been reduced in length by hundreds and even thousands of feet, and have decreased in volume by millions of cubic feet. Between 1871 and 1875 every known glacier was decreasing in size. Then began the period of enlargement. The Bossons glacier of Mont Blanc commenced to creep down the valley again. Within the next four years three more glaciers began to grow. In the past two years fifty glaciers have begun their season of advancement. The period of diminution has entirely ceased in the western and central All is, but the glaciers of the Austrian Alps and a few others arq.still decreasing. These phenomena are not merely of scientific interest. To the inhabitants of many an Alpine valley the periodical growth of the glaciers is a season of dread and solicitude. Twelve great disasters that within the past two centuries swept many hamlets out of existence were all due to glacial growth. The great ice streams in their resistless progress tumble vast rocks down the mountains, uproot trees, shove the turf before them, and tear dwellings into splinters. Thrice has the valley of the Sass been desolated by a glacier that completely dammed the river, and thus flooded the country. Villages have been overwhelmed by great masses of ice that have tumbled from the advancing glaciers. While the period of glacial recession is one of comparative security, the season of growth brings almost constant anxiety and inquietude to the inhabitants. The Swiss Alpine Club has been engaged for some years in efforts to discover the law’s that govern these phenomena. Its President, Prof. Forel, in a recent report, says that some indications of the nature of these laws have been obtained, but they cannot be satisfactorily investigated until much more data have been secured. The society is accumulating a great number of observations, and Prof. Forel invites the co-operation of all scientific mountaineers and Alpine travelers in these interesting and important reseai-ehes. — Anon.

The Charming Oriole.

The bird’s song consists of four notes, and it is curious that, although there is a peculiar, rich, flute-like quality by which the oriole notes may be recognized, no two sing alike. Robins, song sparrows, and perhaps all other birds sing differently from each other,so far as I have observed, but none differ so greatly, in my opinion, as orioles. The four that I have been able to study carefully enough to reduce this song to the musical scale, though all having the same compass, arranged the notes differently in every case. The oriole is, of course, not limited in expression to his song. I have spoken of his cry of distress or of war, which was two tones slurred together. The ordinary call, as he goes about a tree, especially a fruit tree in bloom, seeking insects over and under each leaf or blossom, is a single note, loud and clear. If a pair are on the tree together, it is the same, but much softer. An oriole that I w r atched in the Catskill Mountains regularly fed its mate while she was sitting, and as he left the nest, after giving her a morsel, he uttered two notes which sounded exactly like “A-dieu,” adding, after a pause, two more which irresistibly said, “Dear-v.” There was a peculiar mournfulness in the bird’s strain, as if he implied “It’s a sad world of cats, and crows, and inquisitive people, and we may never meet again. ” Perhaps it was prophetic, for disaster did overtake the little family; a high wind rocked the cradle—which was on a small maple tree—so violently as to throw out the youngsters before they could fly. The accident was remedied as far as possible by returning them to the nest, but whether they were injured by the fall I never learned. Scolding is quite ready to an oriole’s tongue, and even squawks like a robin’s are not unknown. The female has similar utterances, but in those I have listened to her song was weaker, lacked the clear-cut .perfection of her mate’s, and sounded like the first efforts of a young bird. In the case of those now under consideration, the female reproduced exactly her partner’s notes, only in this inferior style, whii-h seemed rather unusual. The sweetest sound the oriole utters is a very low one, to his mate when near by, or fishing away with her, or to his nestlings before they leave home. It is a tender, yearning call that makes one feel like an intruder, and as if she should beg pardon and retire. It is impossible to describe or reduce to the scale, but it is well worth waiting and listening for. —Olive Thorne Miller, in the Atlantic. In Aberdeen, Scotland, many per sonß are down on dancing, of which they speak as “close ; bosomed whirlings.” Whoever makes the fewest persons uneasy is the best bred in the company.

HUMOR.

Evert year is sleep-year with a policeman.—Texas Siftings. A stock-dealer —the gambler who stocks the cards.— Texas Siftings. “Fortune smiles” upon those who have winning ways. — Stockton Maverick. The rule of modern society is to be notorious and not laborious. — Barbers’ Gazette. When he married her he exclaimed; “Won at last!” When he got a divorce he exclaimed: “One at last!”—Whitehall Times. “Pay as you go,” says a philosopher. “But what w r ould be the use of going at ail, then!”remarks a Canadian tourist.— St. Paul Herald. The prodigal son spoken of in the Bible, who tilled his belly with com husks, was, no doubt, troubled with a husky voice the remainder of his life. —Carl Pretzel’s Weekly. It is claimed that an able-bodied whale can spout all day without getting tired. An able-bodied lawyer can do the same thing, but it makes the jury very tired.— Chicago Ledger. Jobbins remarks of his neighbor’s vintage, that from the serenades he hears nightly from the neighborhood he believes him to be cultivating the cat-arbor grape.— Yonkers Gazette. “Young Puller” wants to know if we can recommend aD opening for a dentist. Why not try the mouth of the Mississippi ? It is said to be full of old snags.— Marathon Independent. Americans pretend to sneer at titles, and yet tuft-hunting is so peculiary pleasant to this nation of sovereigns that a deputy constable’s deputy can hardly escape the profix Hon.—lndianapolis Herald. “You have no heart,” sighed a lovesick swain to a pretty coquette who had dozens of admirers. “Oh, yes, I have,” she replied. “I have heart enough to accommodate every good-looking man I meet.”— Merchant Traveler.

“Why did the Apostle Paul go to Athens ?” asked a Sunday-school teacher. “Please, sir, was it to throw' the detectives off the track?” answered a Canadian tourist’s little boy whose papa left him behind.— Brooklyn Times. If there is anything more irrepressible than a fly interviewing a bald head, it is the man who having once had a letter accepted and inserted in the paper, thinks that the genius of composition is inborn within him .—Fall lliver Advance. A musical critic says of a vocalist that “when she sings her heart comes into her eyes.” She must have either a very small heart or very large eyes. If she is one of these singers who charge $2,000 and lialf of the receipts of the house, her heart is small enough to go anywhere. — Norristown Herald. The belts now worn by ladies in a ball-room have knobs affixed for their partners to take hold of, instead of the old-fashioned arm-around-waist method of waltzing. Any man who has ever come home late and took hold of the door-knob and danced around the keyhole until his wife opened the door, can comprehend the breezy richness and soul-satisfying pleasure of a belt-knob waltz. — Newman Independent. Bob Burde'tte, usually so well-in-formed on all topics, speaks of “the dear old grandma, 98 years old, who reads without glasses, and eais pie with a knife, never had a day’s sickness, or wore a bustle in her life.” Ah, Robert, you didn’t know grandma when she was a giddy young thing along back in 1807, A. D. You can bet all the “boodle” you have got salted down that she used to wear a bustle at some period of her life, beside which the ones of the present day are small potatoes and few in a hill.— Peck’s Sun. “It’s a great pity that Mrs. Trego dropped off so suddenly, isn’t it?” “Yes, it just is that very thing, mum.” “She’ll be missed for a long time to come.* “Indeed she will, mum. Slio was such a prime hand on gooseberry jam, and she had promised to show me how she made it, too, mum. I’ll declare when . I heard she was dead I jest felt so bad I didn't care whether I got any tomatoes canned or not.”— Chicago Ledger.

A Lucky Invalid.

The New York doctors charge a great deal more than do the Texas doctors. Col. Sumpter Mcßride Sumpter, of Austin, who w. s quite ill during his recent visit to New York, is our authority for the assertion. He was in bed three or four days at bis hotel, and when the bill was presented he took a piece of paper and a pencil and figured out how much more he had to pay in New York than he would have had to pay in Texas for the same amount of indispositon. Having got through his calculation, he folded liis hands resignedly and said: “I am lucky in being sick here in New York instead of being laid up in Texas.” “Ah!” said the doctor. “Yes,” responded Sumpter, “for all this money I’ll have to pay you I’d had to be sick in Texas for more than two months.” —Texas Siftings.

On Account of Sickness.

Stockton Judge (speaking to prisoner) —You are drunk. Prisoner—Yes, your honor; but I am obliged to drink on account of sickness. “How long have you been sick ?” “I haven’t been feeling well, Judge, for twenty years.” —Stockton Maverick. ‘ A gentleman in conversation said that his dogs were A 1. Shouldn’t they have been rated K 9 2