People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 January 1895 — THE WRONG PASSENGER [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE WRONG PASSENGER

(/n± [lf—? ERARD St Albans lirj is coming here,’’ said Isabel . Marsh, a bright smile lighting up v-V the soft, languid rA beauty of her 6% f “Colonel St. Albefts!” cried | 4 Annie Grey, the l young and lovely cousin of Miss Marsh. “Howdfe-

lightful! It is five years since he went away to that horrid India, and I was just fifteen then—a mere schoolgirl—but still I remember that he was one of the handsomest men in the city! How pleased his sister Helen will be!” ‘‘Certainly. This note is from her, saying that they—herself and Colonel St* Albans—* will do themselves the pleasure of calling here day after to-morrow,” “Splendid! I’ll set my cap at once!” cried the gushing Annie. “Don’t be absurd, cousin! Mr. St. Albans is a traveled man, and quite familiar with pretty faces by this time. Besides, he is an artist of no mean ability, and his character for gallantry in action stood very high when he was in the army.” “Heigho! well, I only wish there had been a hero in our family! But what makes you look so grave, Aunt Letitia?” addressing a serene-faced, brown-haii-fed woman of past thirty, who sat by the window engaged in sewing. Miss Letitia lifted her sad brown eyes, soft and beautiful still, and glanced at her young relatives from beneath the long black lashes. “Oh, let Aunt Letitia alone!” cried Isabel, half pettishly; “she is sewing and dreaming dreams, as usual. And she is too old to care anything about brave ana handsome gentlemen like Colonel St Albans.” Letitia’s pale cheek flushed rosered; her eye gleamed with fire; for the moment she was far more beautiful than either of the girls beside her. She made no reply, but directly gathered up her work and left the room. Annie gazed after her with wide eyes. “Good gracious! what have I said? She looked like a young girl who has just met her lover. Did you see that red on her cheek, Isa? Brighter than the rouge in my toilet case. Letitia must have been handsome once.” “She was the beauty of the city. She is elegant now, though everybody knows she is passe. There was some gossip about her and this Colonel St. Albans once, you know. She saved him from drowning on one occasion, and he was the prince of devotion for a week; then, manlike, he forgot his gratitude, and sailed for India. Men are very consistent creatures, ma belle.” Meanwhile, Letitia Marsh, who was the sister of Isabel’s father, went to her chamber, aud laid her work carefully away in its neat basket, for she was an old maid, and old maids, you know, always do everything with care, if we may credit tradition. She unlocked a drawer, and took from thence a small escritoire, which opened to the touch of a key, which

She always wore attached to a slender gold chain around her neck. The lifted lid displayed a few letters, a bunch of faded flowers tied with a blue ribbon, and a miniature case of dead gold. The case she did not open—perhaps even yet she could not trust herself to look upon the face hidden there, but she pressed the faded flowers to her lips, and held the yellow letters a moment against her heart. Then, with nervqus haste, she flung all those souvenirs of a dead day back into their receptacle, and snapped the casket together rudely, hiding the key again in her bosom. “Yes,” she said, wearily, turning away, “I am too old. And yet, despite it all, I love him utill. Oh! Gerard! Gerard! why did you win my heart and then cast it back to me desolate and unblessed? Oh, Heaven! why are women created with these intense longings forflove, love, always love—and then suffered to drag out a dull existence, missing always all that can make existence life?” She paced the floor softly, her eyes weeping tears bitterer than those which come to younger eyes, her woman’s heart wrung with a pain fiercer than anything which comes to her sex in careless girlhood. But when the storm was over, and that was soon, for Letitia Marsh's was a well-disciplined nature, she W9ot dpwp to the parlors just aa

serene, and quiet, and self-possessed as usual. And when, three days later, Colonel St Albans called, and was devoted to the young ladies, an 1 coldly courteous to herself. Miss Letitia met him with stately grace, anl no feature of li .-r face betrayed that any old sweet memory of him lay hidden in her heart Nobody minded her, &rt.t after th first polite greetings St Albans did not address her. She was very glad of this, inasmuch as it saved her from the necessity or talking, and she knew that there would be a suspicions tremble in her voice; and. besides, she wanted to soothe her sore heart with watching St Albans. He had grown very handsome in those five years of absence, but she saw that there were wrinkles around his eyes, and white hairs among the brown on his temples. Time had not left him untouched. This first visit was like all the others, so far as Letitia was concerned. He was courteous to her, but never friendly, and some fine self-conSciousness of her weakness for him made Letitia avoid him. He visited at Mr. Marsh’s frequently, and Miss Isabel Marsh was very generally supposed to be the attraction. Indeed, the young lady herself was very sanguine of her success in winning the gallant colonel, and on one occasion she was gushingly girlish enough to assure Aunt Letitia that when she was mistress of the new house which the colonel was building at Salisbury Point, nothing could afford her more pleasure than to give her “dearest aunt” a home there. When the snow fell and there was sleighing, Colonel St. Albans invited a party of his friends to the new house for a sort of “house warming” supper, Letitia among the rest. At first she thought she would not go, but Isabel declared it would look “odd,” and people would think that she had not forgotten that “old romantic episode;” and Miss Letitia decided not to give “people” any chance to talk. Isabel went with the colonel in his own sleigh, and was as happy as a queen, and all the other girls were ready to die of envy. The sleighing was none of the best, for a new snow had fallen and the weather had not yet cleared. The wind was blowing furiously, and the air was thick with flying snow. Somehow, in the darkness, the colonel’s horse managed to upset the sleigh, and in consequence, a half dozen more sleighs shared the same fate, and half the merry party were mixed up together in inextricable confusion. The re-embarkation was of course hurried, particularly on the part of Colonel SL Albans, who had a restive horse, and one quite indisposed to wait patiently for passengers in such a furious wind as was then raging. They had gone fully a mile, the colonel holding the reins with both hands, when he heard a low and tremulous voice say: “Pardon me, Colonel St. Albans, but I fear you have taken the wrong passenger.” “Good heaven!” he cried, in strong agitation; “Letitia!” “Yes. Do not; be offended. I was not to blame for it. The snow blinded me and I thought surely you were brother John.”

Through the robes he had wrapped around her, St. Albans was sure he felt her tremble. He drew closer to her side, moved by some uncontrollable impulse to speak what was in his heart. “Letitia” he said hoarsely, “once we were not strangers!” “But that time is past.” “Yes,” he said, bitterly. “Your caprice ruined my happiness and made me a dissatisfied and useless wanderer.” “My caprice!” she said, slowly. “I do not understand.” Letitia was growing dizzy, and the world of snow spun around before her bewildered eyes. He turned upon her sharply: “You do not understand? Then let me explain. Why did you not answer my letter? The letter in which I told you that I loved you—in which I asked you to be my wife? I was a coward, Letitia. Love made me distrust myself, else I should surely have spoken to you instead of writing. But I wrote, and I asked you to answer me as you felt, and I told you that if you rejected me, you need only keep silent. And you kept silent.” “That letter never reached me,” she said, faintly. “It did not! But if it had? If it had?" His hand sought hers, all unmindful of his horse; and the animal took the liberty of deciding his own cour.-e and went off in the very opposite direction from the right one, but St. Albans did not observe it. He wasjtco intent on Letitia to observe his horse. “I loved you, Gerard,” slio said, softly. “Mv answer could have been nothing but that.” “My darling! change that form of expression,” he cried, eagerly. “Say ‘I love you, Gerard!’ ” And she said it, with his lips holding hers so close they dared not make a mistake in the words he dictated. But she added, immediately: “It is too late to dream these dreams, Gerard. lam too old!’" He laughed gleefully. “Just four years younger than your Methuselah of a lover!” said he, pressing her closer to his heart. “It is all right now, dearest, and I thank heaven for sending me the wrong passenger, for she is the right one, after all!” Of course, the girls were all greatly surprised at the turn affairs had taken, and were #-eady to exclaim against the impudence of that “awfully designing old maid;” but Letitia was so happy she could afford to be talked about, and love, the great re* | juvenator, made her again.

HIS HAND CAUGHT HERS.