LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 278, 3 May 1875, Page 3

LITERATURE.

DRIFTING AWAY. (Continued.) Fortunately, the favorable wind blew steadily from the north, without flaw or shift, and presently I saw with satisfaction that I was coming up with the canoe. Lily had ceased to paddle, and sat motionless, her blue eyes gazing forth, it seemed to be, on vacancy ; while her golden hair fluttered in the breeze, and her white wrapper bore, in the shimmering moonlight, a weird resemblance to a shroud. Very near now were the dreaded Falls. Their sullen roar was louder, more threatening, than before, and I could see the glancing cloud of spray that rose from beneath, and the foam on the lip of the cascade, and the crumbling waterworn islets, with their willows and mimosas trembling in the rush and boom of the Falls. The boat was now close to the canoe, and with a dexterity and coolness that astonished myself, I made fast the end of the sheet to the thwart nearest me, steered as near as I dared to the little bark of Indian construction, and scrambling into it with the cautious needfulness which is never more needed than where a canoe is in question, gently took the paddle from Lily's passive hand. As if my touch had had some magic in it, the child awoke from her rapt stupor, gazed wildly, half incredulously, as I thought, around her, and then, with a wild scream of agonised terror, crouched down in the canoe and clung to my knees, calling on me to save her. What struck me, too, even then, was that she used, in addressing me, for the first time, my Christian name. She had never before spoken to me otherwise than as " Mr Harding," in spite of the playful chiding of parents and brother. Now, it was " Cyril, dear Cyril-" But this I set down to the anguish of her present terror, for the moment was one of deadly peril. Already the canoe was being whirled around, like a floating chip, by the strong eddies, and it was only by the most sustained exertions that I could paddle inshore. At last, however, I luckily got near enough to grasp the tough bough of a willow, and drawing the canoe up to the trunk of a tree, I lashed it firmly to a projecting root, and lifting Lily to the bank above, swung myself up, and stood in safety by her side. As I did so, the child pointed with a trembling hand down the river. I looked, and was j ast in time to see the broadhorn, the sail still set, go headlong to destruction over the Falls. Then Lily covered her face and burst into an agony of hysterical tears, which baffled all my efforts to soothe her, and it was all that I could do to bring the poor child safely back to her home, and consign her, still wildly weeping, to her mother's care. I prefer to pass over the scene that ensued. Suffice it that the alarm as to Lily's direful danger, and the thankfulness to Providence for her safety, on the part of the child's fond parents, were deep and earnest. Nor were they less grateful to myself, her youthful rescuer, for the service I had had it in my power to render, in preserving to them, as the mother said, their lost lamb. But my hours at St Anthony were numbered. I started, on the day that followed that memorable night, for New York, and for the shores of the Old World, and, as had previously been planned, spent some years, and those busy ones, in Europe, I am afraid that new occupations, and new companions, in some measure weaned my thoughts from the recollection of my kindly friends in the West, and that my correspondence with the Lowes was but fitful and occasional. I heard, however, with regret, that poor little Lily's nocturnal adventure had been succeeded by the risk and delirium of a fever, from which, as I afterwards learned, her recovery was slow and tedious. It must, I fancied, have been on her account that the family more frequently left their home for change of air than had previously been usual with them, and that I heard of them at Saratoga, at Newport, and at other places of fashionable resort. Once, too, a traveller from Wisconsin was warm in his praise of Lily's budding beauty, and predicted a brilliant marriage for her, but to my imagination she still remained the child whom I had saved from drowning. I had left America as a stripling, but when I recrossed the Atlantic it was as a grown man, who had served his noviciate in business matters, and who was now summoned back to take the principal part in the management of our New York firm, since my father's failing health no longer permitted of his active supervision of the mercantile house which was in future to be known as that of Harding and Son, Before, however, going steadily into commercial harness, I devoted some months to visiting the most remarkable cities and scenery in the south and west, and had promised, at my relative's urgent invitation, to spend at any rate a week or two witn my former entertainers, the Lowes, in Wisconsin. The hospitable family received me with even more than their old kindness, but there was one surprise which awaited me at St Anthony that impressed me more than anything else that I had seen since my return to my native shores. I found Lily—whose image had never recurred to me save as that of a child—grown into a beautiful young woman, the most beautiful, as it seemed to me, that I had ever seen. There was, indeed, nothing portentous in this, for there had been time enough for the bud to expand into the flower, and Lily's charming face had given early promise of the rare loveliness which now dazzled me. I could scarcely bring myself to believe that this graceful and highly bred girl, so accomplished, so self-possessed, and so much admired, could ever have been the shrinking little creature whom I had saved from drowning, I heard incidentally that she was acco\mted, justly enough, one of the prettiest girls in the Prairie States, where beauty is yet plentiful enough, and that it was not for want of attentive cavaliers or of offers of marriage from citizens of high position that she was not at the head of some sumptuous establishmentThat I fell in love at first, so to speak, with my cousin Lily, I am not ashamed to own. Never before, or so I thought, had I beheld such rare loveliness as hers, while the expression of her sweet pure face, and th« evident pride and affection which her kindred and the dependants of the household entertained for her, proved that she had other excellencies than that of mere beauty. I regretted, however, to find that in one respect she was unaltered. He manner towards myself was, as of old, constrained and cold, nor did she manifest any particular pleasure at seeing me again. In fact the frigid indifference of her bearing towards me was only tempered |by the requirements of

politeness towards a visitor, nor did her eyes rest on my face with any interest in their expression. After all, why should she care for me ? The service I had once had the good luck to do for her she had probably almost forgotten. No doubt the memory of that night had long since been effaced from the recollection of the queenly belle of so many ball rooms. Yet I was unreasonable enough to feel hurt and piqued that this should be the case. However, if Lily did not care for seeing her old friend again, her parents and her brother, now grown to be a bold, frankspoken lad, killed, metaphorically, the fatted calf to do me honor, and on the very day of my return they gave a picnic party to which the more intimate of their neighbors were invited, at those very Falls of St Anthony that had so nearly, on the occasion of my last visit, been the scene of a tragic incident. Mr and Mrs Lowe repeatedly referred to the past, cordially praising me for the courage and presence of mind which I had exhibited in so difficult a dilemma. The guests swelled the chorus of eulogy, but Miss Lowe remained to all appearance frigidly indiflerent to the entire subject. Later on there was some conversation as to my European expe riences, and some one, on the strength of a rumor derived from the gossip of some passing tourist, coupled my name with that of a French heiress, a well-known beauty of Bordeaux, whom I only knew as a partner in a round dance, but to whom it was confidently assumed that I was to be married. I disclaimed the imputation, laughingly at first, more earnestly afterwards, and at last —I knew not why, with somewhat of irritation. And as I begged, flushing as I spoke, to hear no more silly jests concerning myself and Mademoiselle Cornelie Boncru, I saw Lily's eyes fixed'.on me with an expression which I could not fathom, but as her glance met mine it was instantly withdrawn. We did not exchange a word more during the remainder of that day, but when night came, and it was time to retire to repose, I could not sleep, but sat long at the open window of my chamber, looking forth across the magnolias and rose bushes of the garden, to where the broad bright moonlight silvered the turf of the grassy path beyond. How had all things altered with me since the last night when 1 had thus seen it, the night of Lily's rescue. How changed was Lily herself, and yet into how lovely a girl had my child-cousin developed. What a pity that her old aversion for myself, her old coldness towards me, remained as they had been when, in her early youth, she showed herself so unwilling to be my companion. Why had I been foolish enough to return to St Anthony, and to entangle my own heart, alas, in the mazes of a passion which I felt was hopeless? However, one thing I determined. In a day, or two days at farthest, no matter on what pretext, I would leave Wisconsin, thus tearing myself away from—Ha ? What was that ? Doubtless, it was a Pucklike trick of my own heated fancy, which made me think that I saw, skirting the fence, and emerging from the shade of the cotton-wood, a white, ghostlike outline of a female form, the golden hair gleaming in the opal moonlight. No, this was no delusion. Lily Lowe—and no other —she whose childish footsteps I had tracked of old—grown to be a woman now, but gliding, with noiseless tread, riverwards, as on that other night. Hardly taking time to think, I left my room, hurried downstairs, and in a moment was in the garden. I passed through the wicked, reached the grass-grown path beneath the fitful shadow of the poplars, strained my eyes in the vain endeavour to catch sight of the vanished figure, and began to feel heartily ashamed of being the dupe of my own excited imagination. After all, how could it be reasonable to attribute to yonder graceful and admired maiden, the remembrance of whose proud glance yet haunted me, the capricious fancies of a sickly child ? I had made up my mind to return to the house, when suddenly I catight a glimpse of white, |far off, on the very bank of the river. A female form, presumably that of Lily, and close, to the best of my remembrance, to the spot whence, years ago, I had seen the child cast loose the canoe from its moorings. I ran forward at my fullest speed, and on reaching the bank, beheld a sight, which caused for the moment, my heart to cease beating. A light birchen canoe, either the same, or of identical construction, with that of Lily's early adventure, was drifting slowly down the river. The water in the Mississippi, which had dwindled under the influence of months of hot weather, was by far lower than on the previous occasion, and the projj gress of the frail craft was less rapid than of old, but still it was borne on, helpless, by the current, which still, at some distance, rose up the hoarse and hollow murmur of the Falls. In the canoe stood the figure of a young girl whom I could not doubt to be Lily. She wore the same light-colored dress which I had seen her wear at the picnic party, but her hair floated loose over her shoulders, in all its golden luxuriance. Her face I could not see, but she held the paddle, unused, in one listless hand, while the other one hung idle by her side. No doubt existed in my mind but that it was again on a somnambulist that my eyes rested, and this was the more singular because—'No, no. Quite cured, thank Heaven !' had been Mrs Lowe's reply to my half-careless enquiry, on arriving, as to her daughter's dangerous habit. But Lily it was who was before me, drifting down, surely and smootly, to meet her death, even as had been the case on tin fc other night so long ago. And how, since fate bad made me again an eye witness of the act, should I save her ? To summon aid would be to waste the precious moments. Before the men who inhabited the huts could be astir, it would be but a lifeless form among the rocks and pools below. Again I must rely on myself, and myself alone, and accordingly I bounded to the rude wharf, and sought with haggard eyes, for a boat which would serve my purpose. The firule, however, that no two sets of circumstances are exactly alike, in this case held good, for, excepting a waterlogged scow, wholly useless, and the unlucky canoe in which Lily had embarked, there was not one craft that was not secured by stout mooring chains and strong padlocks that defied my feverish efforts. With bruised and bleeding fingers I desisted from the futile attempt to force the fastenings, and ran swiftly down the bank, calling out, loudly, to Lily to awake and become conscious of her direful peril. But I might as well have addressed my words of warning to a marble statue. Once or twice, I fancied that the girl slightly shivered, biit she kept her face averted, and was evidently still under the fatal influence of the trance. I (To he continued.)