Saturday Evening Mail, Volume 8, Number 2, Terre Haute, Vigo County, 7 July 1877 — Page 6

MI-: .MAIL

A PATER FOR THE PEOPLE.

THE HARD STRUGGLE.

I've.lo ked OH

poverty undismayed,

11U cM breath on iny cheek, I've sottii hiui crouching at my bed, When wlmN blew shrill and bleak. I've, watched himcrawilng-o my board,

To snatch my scanty lo^d, ihit never muttered him—u». uotouce— l'o scare me wh -ie I sloo But fought htm, upright, Uk»a man

That only feared disjjraec And iit him hard, and laid him low, And KoorntHl him to his face! I've struggled—sure of victory,

In Pride,although ID vain, With soul serene, aud luadereo And so 1 wl'l a^aln.

Farmer Bassett's Romance.

BY SAXK HOI.M.

PART II.

*Ther3! I told you so, Maria! Let me get out!. Let me get out! We'll all have our necks broken. Young man, let inr out this minute do you hear?' screamed the terrified old woman. 'Oh, Aunt Jane,' cr -i Fumy, who r' uid barely speak for I mulling, 'don't be aksurd. 'Ihero is really nothing at all tho matter. Mr. Bassett stopped tho horses himself to show me how quick they would mind his voice. It's all right.' 'I didn't think it would give the wagon such ajar, ma'am,' said John, gravely, though the corners of his mouth quivered. 'I am sorry it frightened you so.'

Aunt Jane was not very easily appeasod. •Don't do it apain. Don't do it again. I very nearly went into tho middle of the road,—a most dangerous trick for horses to have. I always am afraid ot country horses,'she said.

Any alarm in Aim?- fine's mind always broko out in a hr! y, monosyllable", incoherent, lick runnine chatter, iiko nothing u-nler heaven except the cackle ol 'lightened hen. Nobody could help !v, ghing at the sounds which she produ.t-d let the danger be ever so extreme, would be almost impossible not to be amused at them. Fanny broko out into an unrestrained peal of laughter in which John could not help joining,—a fact which completed Aunt Jane's discomfort, and reduced her to a state of ill humor and absolute silence for the rest of the drive.

Mrs. Lane enjoyed and loved fine horses as much as her daughter did, and it was with a really cordial and entirely unnllVetod tone, quite unlike her usual languid manner, that, when they reached home, she thanked John 1 tas.sett for the pleasure they had enjoyed. 'Yes. indeed, Mr. Bassett,'echoed Fanny. 'It is the very nicest thing we have had in Dwrway. Now, you won't let anvthing keep you from coming every nfternoon, will you? We shall depend upon it I wan't to explore every inch of the whole region wit hi *i fifteen miles round. ^Lt is the loveliest country I have over fouinl in New England, lleinemlior now, two o'clock exactly! We won't keep you waiting to-morrow, (iood afternoon!' and she ran rp the pathway like a fleet deer. rid n't touch hislmt. Don't oven know enough to touch his hat. What boors these country people .'ire!' grumbled Aunt Jane, as she laboriously toiled up the piazza steps, lifting her fat ankles slowly, and swinging alternately to rightand left, as a duck when it waddles up-hill. 'Well, why should he touch his hat, Aunt Jaue?'exclaimed Fanny aggressively. 'Ho isn't a coachman, and he lias never been taught that gentlemen ought to life their hats to ladies,—nobody does in Decrway. Tf he had IWII born in the city, he would have known better. It isn't his fault.'

Aunt Jane was half way upstairs, and wheezing audibly, but she stopped, whirled with difficulty on tho narrow stair, and exclaimed: •It's my opinion, Fanny Lane, that you've got some notion in your head of flirting with that strapping fellow, and I'm just going to put mother on her guard."

Fanny flushed. 'Oh, how could mama over have hail such a coarse sister?' she thought, but she answered merrilv: •I'm not afraid. Mamma knows much better tiian to believe anything you tell her about me.'

And then Fanny Lane quiotly sat herself down in a corner of the piazza, and looked off into the vast golden twilight in the west, and said to herself deliberately: •It's a very odd tiling that I like that man's fice so. I have never yet seen a face that I liked so much, lies as strong as a lion, and as true. What'll he ever do for a wife here in Deerway, I wonder.'

The story of the next «ix weeks of John Bassett's life is a* well told in one page as in hundreds: yet its vivid details of delight would need no spinning out.

no

exaggeration to (ill the hundreds of pases and as for col r, it had the palette oJ the New England autumn, and the li -ht of love, frotn which to paint its pictures.

It was an unusually beautiful autumn: the forests were like altar fronts in old cathedrals they glittered with colore which gems could no: [.«. .inc. Heavy September rains tilled the brooks to overflowing, and left tho air cooled and cleared for the Otober sunlight. Deerway lies on one of the highest plateaus in New England. Thb» plateau is in places broken into myriads of conical and Interlapping hills. These hills are thickly wooded with maple, ash, hickory, oak, chestnut, pine, cedar, hemlock, larch not a tr* of all New England'# wealth of trees is lacking.

For miles and miles in all directions the roads run through forests and by the sides of brooks and streams. Then when you come out on the intervals and opens between these hills and forests, there are magnificent vistas of viow U» distant taorinns where rise the peak* and ranges of New England's highest mountains

Over theso roads, under these trees, across these lifted plains, drove John Bassett and Fanny I^ine, side by side, every afternoon for six weeks. The two elderly ladios behind, wrapped in their cloaks and shawls, and often half asleep, little dreamed of the drama whose prelude was so quietly and fatefuliy arranging and arrayiog its forces on the flrout seat.

Fanny Lane was a gennlne and passionate lover of the country. As soon as, she entered it, the artificiality, the paltty ambitions, the false standards of her oity life, fell away from her like dead husks. She was another woman. Had all her life been passed thus face to face with the nature she was born to love, she had been indeed another and a no­

bler person. A* it was, all that hor few months' interval of ea«h year of Hummer and out door life did for her was to give her a marvelous added physical health, a superabundance of vitality, which country life can never give to any one who does not love it with his whole soul. There seemed sometimes almost a mockery in the carrying back to the senseless dissipations and excitements •f a gay city wlnt«r the zest and capa' tv to endure and to onjoy, born of woods and iields and sunrises and sunsets But this was what Fanny Lane did year after vear. It was like living two lives OH two different planet*: no one who knew her only in one would recognize her in the other,—would believe the other possible to her. How should John Bassett dream that this girl, who knew every tree, every wayside weed ty ivsidt name, who climbed roclcs with exultant joy like a chamois, who came home from her drives, day after day with her arms loaded with ground pine and cle matis, with big boughs of bright leaves, with lichens and mosses, would be transformed, one month later, in her city home, into a nonchalent, conventional wonun of society, aim wt entirely absorbed in a routine oi visits and balls?

Fannv Lane was also an artist by nature. No spot of color in the woods, no distant shading ot'tint in the horizon, no picturesque gioupiug of work people in the fields, no smallest beauty of their rude homesteads, escaped her eye she noted every one and she spoke of each one with the overflowing tone of delight which belongs to the joy of the true artist nature. How should John Bisset dream that

thes0

hand,

ment

things which she

seemed «o to love and delight in, as a spectacle, as if thoy were painted on a canvas! and that she would use the same tones and show the same joy, a few weeks later, over rare jewels and beautiful raiment, over an exquisite equipage or a fine flavored wine! How should John Bassett droam, when she jumped lightly from the high wagon seat to the ground at one bound without touching his

and cried, 'Oh, what a lovely

drive we have had I never had such goood time in n*y life, Mr. Ilissett, in her happiness was as purely a sensuous ono as if she had ^een a faun and tt.ai she had said the same tiling thousands of times before! ller faculty of enjoy

was simply a superb gitt it was tho health and mirthfulness of a young animal added to tho keen susceptibility and passionless passion of tho artist nature: the overflow of all this, the effervescence of these two qualities gave a sparkling enchantment to her life and behavior, which was contagious and irresistible to all persons who did not pause to anah zo or question it. John Bassett neither questioned nor analyzed it. In the intervals of his absence from her, he simply recalled her. When ho was with her, ho simply felt and heard her.

And so tho six swift weeks sped on, and the day came at last when John Bassett had to say good bye to Fanu Lane at the little Deerway railway station, to which he had driven them early ono

crisp

October morning. In the hur­

ry of checking luggage and bestowing Aunt Jane and hor canary bird and her inanv parcels in the train, there was little chance for farewell words, but just at the last moment? Mrs. Lane said, very cordially, for she had come to have an honest liking for tho grave and manly vonng farmer: •Whenever you come to town, Mr. Ba«s«tc bo sure and come and see us,' and she shook hands with him warmly. 'Oh yes, Mr. Bassett, you must come,' cried'Fanny 'I shall be so glad to see von. I shall miss Tom and Jerry horriblv. Our horses are not half so nice, and'o'ur stupid park will bo so dull after the Deerway woods. Oh, dear me! wish I could stay here all winter. GoodDye! Now, bo sure and come and see us if vou are in town,' and the cars whirled away, bearing Fanny Lane out of John Bassett's sight.

Ho jumped into his wagon as if he were in great haste, and drove away at a furious rate. As soon as he was out of sight, he said to Tom and Jerry: 'Walk, boys,'Hinging the rein3 loose on their neck's, and never once rousod from his reverie of thought and emotion till the whole six miles had passed, and the horses turned of their own accord into

the farm

house gate. Then ho started,

and exclaimed: 'Bless me! I meant to liavo stopped at Moll v's. but it is too late now.'

Poor littlo Molly had been looking out for John all the morning. Tt so chanced that tboir last boarders had gone to the station that morning, and Molly had seen John drive by with the Lane party, and had perceived, much to her joy, that they were also going to the train. 'Oh, I'm so glad!' said Mollv. 'It's all done with for this year. Now wo cau have poaco and comfort again.'

How many times John had come laughing within a few hours after the last boarders had taken leave, and exclaimed as he opened the door: •Thank heaven, the last summer boarder's out or the way!'

So Molly felt very sure he would stop now on his way back from the station and surprised enough she was, to be sure, when sho saw him drive past tin house, —Tom and Jerrv walking as lazily as if thev were in the pasture, and John sitting with his hands on his knees and his oves fixed on t^e dasher. '•Why, what a brown study John's in!' exclaimed Molly. 'I wonder what he's thinking about.'

And this was all sho thought, for Molly was a sweet, gentle, unsuspicious little girl and besides, did not she know Jonn Bassett through and through— almost as well as if they had been rocked in the same cradle? If anybody had suggested to .Mollv that John might Iw in love with one of the 'summer boarders,' she would have langhed merrily she knew better than anybody olse how he hated tho very sight of all those city people and she had often thought in the past few weeks bow good it was of John to take those three women to drive everyday—'jn»t to help the Goodenow*.'

Poor littlo Molly! It was some weeks after Fanny Lane's departure before the thought of asking her to be his wife took actual shape of purpose in John Bassett's mind. He was almost benumbed, he missed her so and he spent whole days driving vaguely round and ronnd in the roads where he had driven with her he knew well enough what all this misery meant, but while it was at its first height, be could not even giasp at anv ray of comfort or hope. He loved this woman with the whole intensity of his reticent and long-restrained nature, though his common sense told him (whon be let it lift units voice at all) that it would be folly for him to think of her as his wife,—folly on all accounts: her utter unfitness for a farmer's wife the utter improbability of her loving Mm. 'Pshaw,' he said to himself, a hundred times a day, 'John Bassett, rou area fool!' Nevertheless, day by day, and night by night, a crnel hope whispered to him. He recalled every word Fanny had said of her glad delight in Deerway life. •I'm stir®,' he thought, 'no human beIng could be happier than she was here. She belongs to the country. She's country all over. There Isn't any of the city lady about hor. Not a bit.

TERHE HAUTE SATURDAY

•She said she wished she could stay hero all winter. 8he needn't ever lift her hand to do a stroke of work. I could keep two or three girls for her, jnst as well as not and good John Bas»ett thought over, with truly manly pride, how he could give to his ladylove all which, in his simplicity of heart., he could conceive of even a city lady's requiring. •I'd build lier any sort of a house she wanted, If she didn't want to live here with mother. Or I'd take her anywhere in the world she wanted to go. There's money enough and so the treacherous hope 'allied itself to the blinded love, and both together lured John Bassett on until one day in midwinter he rang tho door l«ll of the grand house in which

Fanny Lane lived 'in town.' He had not come with any assured hope not at all toward the last, his strong, good Bense had come to look on tho step more as a desperate remedy for a desperate hurt, than a probable healing of the wound bv the gentle and blessed healing of happiness. Ho said to himself, grimly: 'It's tho only way I'll ever get free from it. I've got to know the truth once for all and I'm not ashamed to ask her.'

Mrs. Lane's black servant man hud never seen at Mrs. Line's ui-or a person of precisely John Bassett's hearing. His first impression was, that he was some sort of a tradesman, aad ho was on tho point of giving him a seat in the hall, when John's quiek and decisive tone— 'Will you please say to Miss Lane that Mr. Bassett, fiom Deerway, wishes to see her,' caused him to change his ta.:tics, and usher this nnclassod gentleman into the drawing room.

On the very threshold of this room, Jbhn got his first blow. People who have been accustomed all thoir Jives to laces and velvets, and paintings and statues in their rooms, can form no conception of the bewildering impression which such splendors produce on tho mind of simply reared persons seeing them for the first time. John's only experience of plendor, or what he thought splendor, ha I been in theatres, whore lie had, a few tbn»w in his life, soon plays ,.u on tliesfau'e with considerable nmg11ilic'iiee of appointment. Ilo would not have conceived that even kings' palaces could thore be rooms so adorned as was this room in Fanny Lane's home. The only thing which he saw, which did not give liiui a senso of dazzling bewilderment, was the conservatory which opened from the farther end of the room. With a vague instinct ol seeking refuge, he walked toward it but even here all seemed unreal the plants wore, to him, as now as the soft carpets and the floating draperies of cobweb laco not a familiar leaf or flower only a great exuberant bower ol' strange colors and strange shapes, and an overpowering spicv scont which seemed, to his fresh and uncloved nerves, almost sickening. In voluntarily he looked about him for a window he wanted fresh air and a sight of the blue sky. Draperies and veils shut out ono and hid tli-i other ho felt as if ho were in an enchanted prison, audit seemed to him a rneasurelessly long time before the black servant re turned, and holding out to him some newspapers said, with a much increased respectfulness of demeanor: 'Miss Fanny says, sir, that she is very glad, indeed, to see you, but she will have to keep you waiting awhile, for she is just dressing for a dinner. She sent down the morning papers thinking you might like to look them over.'

Mechanically, John took tho papers and sat down in the simplest chair he could find, and as near to the wonderful window draperies as he dared to go. Mechanically, be fastened hisej eson the printed words but he did not read one. He was wondering what would be the next scene in the pl*y. Fanny Lane's face, as he had seen it, tho last summer in a simple white chip shade hat tied loosely under her chin, with a branch of wild roses floating down on her shoulder seemed dancing in the air before him. Would she look as she looked then? He had sat thus wondering and dreaming for a long half hour, when a soft, silken rustle fell on his ear, and a swift, light step, and the voice he knew so well said, in the doorway: 'Oh, Mr. Bassett, I'm so glad to see you and you most forgive me for keeping you waiting so long, but you see I am going to astupid dinner at six o'clock and was just dressing for it. But now I am all ready, and have nothing to do but sit and hear all about Deerway, and dear old Tom and Jerry. I'm ever so glad to see you have you been well?' and the vision held out its hands, which looked like Fanny Lane's hands, and recalled John Bassett a littlo to his senses.

This was what Fanny Lano had done: When the servant brought to her Mr. Bassett's name and message, sho sprang to her feet, and exclaimed, 'Why, the good soul? I'm so glad to see him. Tell Mr. Bassett I'll be dowu in a moment,' but before the man had left the room, sho exclaimed, 'Wait, William.' Then turning to hor mother she said: •I believe I'd bettor dress before I go dowu, for it's four o'clock now and ho'll bo just as likely to stay two hours as ono, and I never could "hurt his feelings by tolling him I had an engagement.' 'Yes, dear, I think so too,' absented Mrs. Lane, though she did not in the least think so, having a very distinct impression of the incongruity between Fanny's evening toilet and her Deerway visitor. Then Fanny went to her room, s»ying in her heart, as she went: •It may be alia ridiculous fmcy of mine, but it won't do any barm and if the poor fellow hasi really came down hero with any such idea in his head, nothing would cure him of it so soon a* to see mo in evening dress. I know John Bassett well enough for that.'

Fanny L*ne had nover forgotten, she had often wished she could lorget,—the look on John's face as the train moved out of the Deerway station, the day she had bade him good-bye. It smote her with a pang,—riot by remorse, for she was not conscious of having by look, word or deed done anything to invite or to awaken his love,—bnt of bitter and bootless regret. She liked and esteemed John Bassett heartily more than that, she recognized in him the elements of a true manliness cf the precise order that she most admired: and she bad uiore than once gone so far in her secret thoughts as to admit to herself that not one of the men with whom she had thus far been brought into contact could compare in point of fine native grain and honesty clear through to the core with this uncultured and unmannered farmer. Through all Fanny Lane's worldliness, and ambition and conventionality, she bad kept unsullied her womanly instinct of reverence for, and tenderness to, all real love. To break, or to hurt a heart wantonly was as impDSsible to her as it would be to John Bassett himself. Very sorely she suffered during the half hour that she spent in arranging herself to go down to meet this man whom she feared she bad wounded and it was a serious and pensive face that looked back at her from the long pier-glass, as ahe surveyed herself at last, and noting every point of the perfection of her attire, though sadly, •I am sure if be has thought of such a thing, he will see now that he has made a $reat mistake*'

EV

pure-minded,—this

seeing

whole

ENIISl MAIL.

Kind, wise Fanny Lane! When John first looked up. he literally did not know her. The darning white neck and white arms were all he saw at first, and at sight of those he felt an honest and quick displeasure. To his unenlightened and uncultured senso, they weie unseemly. We knew, he had read that this was the way of the world and he bad often seen actress women thus bared to the eyes of men but even in the theater he had disliked it be was so simple-hearted, so

man of the fields,—

and now, nearer, within the close and unrestrained reach of bis eye, he disliked it more. Yet it was not this, powerfully as thi» affected him, which slew on the instant the purpose with which he had sought Fanny Lane. For this he could have had patience and comprehension,

that all the influences and cir­

cumstances of her life made it inevitable. The thing which slew the purpose, almost the desire, within his heart, was the thine which Fannv Lane had divined beforehand would slav it, and had purposely plotted should slay it it was the

atmosphere of luxury, artiftc-

ialel»gaiica in herdross. 8he had chosen the showiest and costliest of her gowns a heavy wine-colored silk, with a sweeping train trimmed profusely with white lace white chrysanthemums, so daintily and truly made that it was hard to believe them artificial looped the folds of tho silk, and were scattered in the lace whito chrysanthemums, made of pearls with yollow topa7.es for their centers, shonein her hair, on her neck and on her arms. She was superbly beautiful in this tsilot, and sho knew it but she knew or believed that it was a kind of beauty which would bringhealingand not harm to tho heart of John Bassett. It did. It did its work so quickly that to her dying day, Fanny Lane never felt sure—and it was many years before she ceased to wonder—whether tho healing had been needed or not. 'Very well, thank von, Miss Lane.' said John Bassett, with an untroubled and warm-hearted smile, in reply to her first inquiry. 'I am always well. Have you been well? and your mother and mint? You asked me to come and see vou, if I came to town, aad so as I was hero to-dnv, I callod. Are you well?' 'I am vorv glad you did,' said Fanny and with an unoasy instinct whi^h she never felt in a ball room, she drew close up to her throat the fleecy shawl she had thrown ovor hor shoulders as she came down stairs. Without knowing what she felt., she had felt the avoidance in John Basscti's eyes. 'Yes, I am very well.' 'Yon do not look as well as you did in Deerway,' waid the honest man, looking at hor more closely now that ho could 'you aro not out-of-doors enough, are yon?' 'Oh, yes, but it's a different out ofdoors,'"said Fanny. 'It's only one degree better than in doors but it's *11 we can have till summer comes, and we can get back to Deorway.' 'Will you bo in Deerway next summer again?' asked John. 'Oh, no, Mr. Bassett, nor for two or three summers wc aro going to Europe in May, to stay three years!'exclaimed Fannv, with great animation. 'I'm so delightod. Tt has been the dream of my life. But, Mr. Bassett, do tell me about Tom and Jerry and bow tho pine woods look now the snow has come. I wish I could see Deerway in t.he winter.'

Then John told her about Tom and Jerry, and about tho pino trees, with great avalanches of snow on their branches, and about the sledding, and sugaring time, which would soon come and before he knew it, it was alreadydark and time to go. As ho rose, Fanny exclaimed: 'Oh, let mo give you some flowers, Mr Bassett come into'the greenhouse.'

Very ruthlessly Fanny Lano cut the rare llowers, not even sparing the tremulous and spiritual orchids, of which she had a few. Putting the fragrant and beautiful mass of bloom into a basket which stood on the table sho said, with a sudden impulse: 'Give some of these to that pretty little Miss Wilder I saw in Deerway, the one thatsingsin the choir. She lives near you doesn't she?' 'Oil, yes,'said John, 'sho is just liko my sister she is very fond of flowers.' 'She has one of the very sweetest taces I over saw,' said Fanny earnestly 'I never have forgotten it.'

John looked a little astonished. He did not know that Molly's face was swe«t but he knew that she was. 'Molly's a very sweet, good girl,'he said, warmly, and oddly enough, those were the last words, except good-byes, which passed between John Ba-sett and Fanny Lane.

After Fanny went up into her mother's room, she stood for some minutes at the window, watching John's tall, broad shouldered figure, as ho walked aw.ay. Then she sighed heavily and sat down. 'What's the matter now?' said Aunt Jane. 'Nothing,' said Fanny, 'only I was thinking that country people area great deal happier than we" are.' 'Pshaw!' said Mrs. Lane, languidly, 'I wonder what Mr. Bassett thought ot your gown. I don't suppose that ho ever

SAW

a really handsome silk gown

before.' 'He didn't appear to think anything about it at all, said Fanny, half petu lantly. Could it have been that, side by side with her good, true purpose of saving John Bassett from speaking words he might wish unsaid, she had had a petty desire that he should, at least, confess ber moro beautiful in her silks and jewels? 'What could you expect?' sn »ered Aunt Jane. 'I don't suppose he'd know a pearl marguerite with a topaz middle, from one of the ox-eye daisies on his farm!' 'Ye««. ho would.' retorted F«nny, 'and like the ox-eve daisy a great deal better and that's where he is happier than we are.'

John Bassett went back to Deerway. The purpose, nay, even the desire to ask Fanny Lane to be his wife was slain, as we have said, in an instant, by the sight and the sense of the Fannv Lane whom he bad never seen, never known, till he saw and knew her in her city splendors. But there remained still the memory, the consciousness of the other Fanny Lane whom be had seen and known during all these long, sweet, bewildering summer hours. This memory and this consciousness were not so easiljslain. They died hard, and John was, for many "months, a man bereft. If there bad been in the Deerway graveyard a mound under which he had laid away the dead body of a woman be had loved, bis sense of*loss would not have been much greater. The winter was a long, and cold, and sunless one. If it bad been summer, John's loneliness would have been far less nature would have helped to cure him, through every pore, and every nerve but the New England winter is a bitt9r season in which to be shut up alone with a grief it takes a serene and ever abiding joy to reconcile one to its imprisoning cold. The months seemed very long to John. They seemekl very long to Molly Wilder also. The instinct of love is like the subtle added sanse by which the blind know the presence or the approach of a person they can neither see, nor hear, nor touch. What had happened to John

Molly-did not know, could not imagine but that something had changed him, she felt so keonly, that she could hardly keep back tears when he spoke to ber. .Sometimes she fancied that he must have discovered that he had some deadly disease of which he knew he wouid sooner or later die but he said that he was well and he looked well. Sometimes she fancied that she had in some unwitting way displeased him and hundred times a day, the gentle girl said, 'I will ask Johu what I have done but somehow a shy consciousness which did not clothe itself in words made it impossible for her to ask the question.

Molly was unhappier than John meantime, he came ana went, all winter, in the old fashion, so far as times and seasons counted, and never dreamed that he was seeming at all unlike himself he never noticed, either, that Molly was pale, and was growing thin, until one day in April, when all the young people were out on a sunny hillside looking after arbutus blossoms, on a mossy loir, with a few violets lyi"tr loosely dropped in her lap, hor hands cr«*»sed idly above them, and her eyes fixed on the far horizon, with an expression of sweet suffering on her countenance. He ran towards her. 'Why, Molly, what is the matter? Have you hurt yourself?' he exclaimed.

Nh» flushed red, and replied: 'Nothing. I am only tired.' But John saw that there had been tears in her eyes, and with a sudden lightning fiasn of consciousness, his heart pricked him. 'Dear little Molly!'he thought.

4I

do

believe I've been cross to her all winter. I've been thinking about something else all the time, and she hasn't anybody else but me."

From that hour, John's manner toward Molly changed, and the color began to come back to Molly's cheeks. Nothing could be further from love making than his treatment of her and vet she was comparatively h.appy, for the old atmosphere of brotherly fondne&s and care had returned, and gradually the old good cheer came too.

Molly did not dream that anything moro would follow if ever the thought had striven to enter her pure, maiden heart, that it would boa joy to be John's wife, she would have blushed with •hame at herself, as if the thought were a sin but it must have been hard for Molly to keep t^e thought away all through these days, when John was deliberately poruiitting himself to wonder whether, after all, little Molly were the woman who would bring him true peace and content. He was very honest with himself. He knew he did not love Molly as bo had loved Fanny Lane but he also knew clearly that his love for Fanny Lano was a mistake—was a glamour of the senses—and be was last coming to lee), by Molly's side, a serene sort ot happiness which be relieved was a better* and truer, thing than the other. There was not a trace of coxcombry in John Bassett's nature. Ho did not once Jeel sure that Molly could love him as a husband but be said to himself: 'If 1 feel that I can make hor happy, I beli»ve she is the woman I ought to marry. I've loved her ever since I can remember anything, and ttiat ought to be the best sort of love."

And as tho summer grew fair this feeling grew strong, and John and Molly grew happier and happier, until one October day when everything except grapes had lipened, this too ripened and fell, and Molly gathered it. lion John said to her: 'Molly, do you think you could love mo well enough to have me for your husband?' she looked up into his face and said only: 'Oh, John, do you think I should make you happy?' And 111 that same instant something in the look on Molly's face, and in tho tone of Molly's voice, smote tho inmost citadel of John's heart which had never before opened, and nover would have opened to any other Qr different touch

There is an evil fashion of speech and of theory, that a man's love for a wo man lasts better, is stronger, if he bo never wholly assured of hers for him. This is a base and shallow thoory an outrage 011 true manliness it has grown out of the pitiful lack of truo manP/iess in some men out of the pitiful abundance of selfish counterfeit l»ves and loving. Nothing under heaven can so touch, so hold, so make eternally sure, the tenderness, the loyalt}', the passion of a manly man as the consciousness in every hour, in every act of life, that the woman whom he has chosen for his wife lives for him, in him, utterly and absorbingly.

Before snow fell, John and Molly married. Molly went up from the house 011 the meadow to tho bouse 011 tho hill to live, and that seemed to bo almost tho only change, except in the gladness of her heart and John's, and that was a chaupe nobody knew much a bout except themselves. A little change there was also in Molly's clothes, though not the usual metamorphosis which brides undergo. She was as quiet in her tastes as a Quaker and tho only adornment which she woro whon she first went to church as John's wife, was a wroath of small whito chrysanthemums in her hat. They were singularly becoming to hor fair and rosy face. It cannot bo denied that when John first saw them, I10 started a little, and remembered some he had seen a year before, made of pearls and topazes." But he thought these much prettier than those and as Fanny Lane had said, 'an ox-eyedaisy 011 the farm,' prettier than either.

We may not dare in this world to wonder why the sad people live aud the happy people die. At times one is so overwhelmed by the terrifying consciousness of this cruel habit of fate, that one hardly ever dares rejoico at his fullest, for tear of being slain and removed from his jov.

John Bassett and his dear and beloved wite, 'little Mollv,' lived together only one short year." Then with his own hands he laid her and their baby daughter, who had never breathed, in one grave under the apple trees in the south orchard, where he could see the mound from his chamber window. Now was John Bassett indeed bereft. This blow told on him heavily. It changed him mont by month by a slow, benumbing process, i..to a man sadly unlike what he had been before. He had lived, as we said, like a nobie pagan. He suffered as the noble pagans used to suffer, with a grim stoicism, an unwilling and resentful surrender to powers he was too feeble to oppose.

Before little Molly was taken ill, she had had a presentiment that she would die, and she had set all ber bouse in the most careful order to leave behind her. Her few little personal ornaments, her two or three bits of lace, ana ber two silk gowns—only two, and of the simplest fashion—she bad laid away with bags of lavender in one of the deep drawers in an old fashioned chest which stood in their chamber. Her common clothes she bad packed in a box, and had said to John one day: 'If I don't get well, deaV, just give that box to mother all the things will be of some use to her but those things in the drawer I'd like to have kept for the baby. I don't believe that God will take us both away from you and I am sure it will be a girl—a daughter would

it vi

1

4

comfort you more than a son, wouldn't it, dear?' And so it came to pass that after Molly was buried, there was hardly a trace let of ber in the old Bassett house except her little work basket, which stood on the stand by her bed, and bold a little b&by's sack of flannel, on which she bad been working that last day. This basket John would not allow to be moved. It hurt him like a new sight of Molly's dead face whenever bo looked at it,"and 3'et he could not bear to have it taken "away. He would ©f«en turn over the spools, the worn and discolored bit of beeswax, the thimble, the scissors he would take up the little sack, and look at it almost with thoughts of hatred. If the baby bad lived he would have come to love her in spite of her having cost her mother's life but now be felt that Molly had gone childless out of the world, he waslelt childkss in it this miserable, frustrated, useless life that was never a life at all, had separated him from Molly-^it was bitter. One day he felt in one "of the silk pockets of the basket a rustling of paper clumsily and with difficulty he thrust his big fingers deep down into the little receptacle, and drew out of it a crumpled bit of newspaper. It had been folded and refolded so many times that the creases were worn almost through. He opened it carefully, and read the following lines: "THE WIFE'S REVERIE." 0 h«mrt of mine, is our estate,—

Our sweet estate—of joy assuied? J1 came so slow, It came so late, Bought by such bitter pnlns endured Dare we loiyet these sorrows sore, And think that they will come no more

With tearful eyes I scan my face, And doubt how he can find it mlr Wistful, I watch each charm and grace 1 see that other women wear Of all the secrets of love's lore, I know but one, to love him more! 1 seoeach day, he grows more wlie, Bis life is broader far than mine 1 must he lucking in his eyes, In many things where others!-hlue. O, heart! can we this loss restoie lo him, by simpiy loving more?

I often see upon his brow, A look half tender and half stern liis thoughts are far away, I know To fathom them, I vainly yearn But nought is ours which went before 0 heart! wo can but love him moie!

1 sometimes think that he had loved An older,deeper love, apart Krom this which later, n.ebler moved His soul to mine. O heart! O heart! What can we do? This hurteth iore. Nothing, my heart, but love him more!

Tears filled John's eyes: 'Oh. what could have made Molly keep that?' ho said to himself. 'Dear little girl! I never really loved anybody 111 this whole world, but her, arid I never will.'

Tho lines haunted him lor days. He put the papor into the upper drawer where be kept bis collars aud neckties, llo did not like t® leave it in tho basket, lest, some day, it might be read by some one elso. Every niorniug, whon he was dressing, he took it out and read it again, and it always brought tho tears to bis eyes. Alter awhile, he lead iUets often and alter another whiie,'it was gradually pushed farther and Jarther and farther back in the drawer till, it being out of sight, he forgot if, and at last, some day, it might have been a year, it might have been tw» or three— nobody will ever know—the little worn wisp ol paper over which sweet Molly Bassett bad, in spite of all her quiet happiness, shed tears, slipped through a wide crack ait the back of tho drawer, and fell down into the drawer beneath, the drawer which held Molly's clothes, fragrant with tho undying lavender. Here the verses*lay for years, forgotten aud undisturbed—forgotten—for John Bassett had become a grave, silent, steadv working, contented farmer —undisturbed—for the key of the drawer lay where Molly had laid it, in the till of the chest, and John never saw it without thinking of her, and wondering uneasily what vwuld be done with those garments whon he should die. The verses he had forgotten all about. But it was not because be had forgotten Molly that he had forgotten the verses neither was it because he had forgotten Molly, that when he was, in the Doerway vernacular, 'just turned lorty,' ho one dny rode over to Middleburg Crossing and asked the widow Thatcher to marry him. lie was lonely he was unconilbrt» ble lie had borne with the eyeservice, the shortcomings, the ill nature of hired women in his house as long ss he could and just as the Deorway poople had fairly settled down into a belief that 'nothing under heaven would induce John Bassett to marry again,' that 'there as a man who was really true, from first to last, to his first love,'they were electrified one fine niorniug, by finding posted up oti the brick meeting house walls 011 tne ominous blackboard containing the announcement of intended marriages, the naiufrs of John Bassett and Mrs. Susan Thatcher.

Mrs. Susan Thatcher was tho most notable housekeeper in Wenshiro county. Sho was something of a larmer, too, and had'done very well for a woman,' everybody said, with Siah's farm since his death. She made the best butter and cheese in the region dried more applep, and pickled more pickles—swett, sour and 'mixed'- than any two other women. Her bread always took the premium at the county fair and as for her'drawn in rugs,' they were tho wonder and admiration of everybody. She was spinner, too, and stoutly discountr.r.anced the growing di«ftvor into which that ancle. .i j.i.U ^.tkuresque art was falling. 'You can always spin at the odd times when you wouldn't do anything else,' sho said, and by chests full of homemade linens and woollens she made good her words. With all this notable industry and skill, she was also warmhearted and cheery bad a pleasant word for everybody, aud was a master hand at 'bees' of all sorts, especially at 'quiltin gs.'

She was generous, too, and gave away her turkevs at Thanksgiving, and her chickens in July, with a cordial liberality not common in the country. She was generous, moreover, with what costs more than fo«d or money—sympathy and help she was confided in and leaned on by everybody and even if her words sometimes seemed a little brusque or hard, it always turned out that in their sense and substance, they were right, for Susan Thatcher was the incarnation of common sense.

As soon as Deerway rtcovered from its first shock of surprise at the announcement of John Bassett's intended marriage, the town was unanimous in its approval. 'The very best thing he could have done,' they said 'I wonder nobody's thought of it before.' •He couldn't have found a woman in all the country who'd have gone right on to that farm an' worked everything's Susan Thatcher will.'

This was quite as clear to John Bassett as it was to any of his neighbors and it was with a great sense of assured satisfaction and calm contentment that he took bis second wife home and installed her in bis house. He felt for her a great esteem and an honest liking, ana tho sort of calm affectionate regard, which was all he had to offer her in the way of loye. was all that Mrs. Susan Thatcher would have known what to do with.

Continued cn Seventh rage.]