LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 338, 13 July 1875, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE WIDOW CASE. A Dear Hunt. Continued. She did not behave in the least like any of my other lovers; she treated me at first with a polite indifference. I could sometimes see a flash of fun in her bronze eyes if I was unusually awkward, and I know I was often very awkward when I felt those eyes at hand, When she knew me better, she made perpetual fun of me in a lady-like way. She was sweetly sarcastic towards my opinions ; she openly scorned my supine notions — which were really no notions at all —about things in general ; she disagreed with me always. I never saw so versatile a creature. To this day I regard her with curiosity and amazement; for I know no more now than I did then at what point she may face about, abandon her position, and utterly rout mine from some new point of attack. I think she would have made a wonderful success as a strategist, had she been in the army. Is it necessary to say that I retained my position in Canaan Academy—that I felt my service, irksome as it was, better than absence from this strange fascinating creature, before whom I daily lay more and more helpless, who wove her threads more closly about me every hour, I never could tell if she liked me ; I was afraid she despised me; but I adored her, I even came to admire her hair; its redness hid under the shifting golden gloss of light and shadow; her lips were red, but that rich and waving mass was bronze ! I was fathoms deep in love, as one may say; and there I drowned hapily, till I began to hear mutterings from friends and business in the distance. I tore myself away at the New Year vacation for a brief visit to H where I installed Atwood as my partner, and stopped his remonstrances with this sop. I gave out that I was studying in the country, and carried back with me sundry big law-books, which my landlady had the pleasure of dusting. Somebody had sent the Widow Case in my absence a set of cut jet ornaments. They came from New York she said. She thought Uncle James sent them, but there was no letter. I brought her a bunch of hot-house flowers, which she said were very pretty. I must say the jet things looked well on her white neck and arms. I thought they would. By this time I had begun to call at Miss Fyler’s at least as often as once a week. That worthy lady received me ordinarily with the amenity a cross cat extends to a big dog. I do not know what withheld her from openly flying in my face and forbidding me the house. I think she would have done so but for the fact that she knew her neice’s high spirit, and did not want to be left by her to the loneliness of her bitter old age. But she did not attempt to conceal her hatred of me, and I live to thank her for it, since I believe nothing else would have made the Widow Case show me any favor. But the blessed little woman had her own share of that perversity which makes her sex at once so tormenting and so delightful. The worse Miss Fyler treated me the kinder she grew. I was allowed to come home with her from prayer meetings, when 1 hung about the door sometimes full twenty minutes for her sake. I took her twice sleighing—a species of devotion which I consider the supremest possible to offer ; for how must one be absorbed in a woman when he can drive two hours iy a winter night with the thermometer below zero, nose, eyes, and mouth stiffening in the keen breezes, simply to give that woman pleasure ? But I did it. I had rather have done almost anything else for her. Miss Fyler grew worse and worse. When I went there I could hear her using vehement and unpleasant language about me in the next room while I waited ; but I could hear Lora defend me, and that repaid me for her aunt’s dislike.

Yet it was spring—coy, shy, inexpressibly sweet New England spring—before I dared asked the Widow Case to marry me; and I don’t know to this day how I did it. We were out with a party after arbutus ; the day was soft and inspiring; the odour of those tender pink blossoms stole upward from their hidden beds and filled the tranquil air. I had strayed away from the rest, after Lora. How lovely she looked in her black shady hat and dark gray dress with black ribbons and white ruffles ! * Mitigated affliction,’ I am told they call it in the shops. I never did think she was unmitigatedly afflicted by Tom Case’s death; but it was proper to wear black, of course, though she looked lovely in everything. However it was, I did ask he that day, and she almost said yes, and half said no, and at last promised to think about it. I went half mad with joy 1 dared not show, for fear she would take offence at it, and give me my conge on the spot; but all day and all night the old French saw ran in my head —Chateau qui parlc et femme qui ecoute tons deux vout se rendre, and in a fortnight Lora wore on her left hand a great sapphire set in little diamonds that I led her to suppose was once my great grandmother’s, I don’t know that it was; I don’t know but it was. Not being Gr. Washington, as I have already remarked, I can adopt facts in cases of necessity, or even draw on my imagination for them; and if Lora had known I bought that big sapphire at Tiffany’s, my poverty would have been shamed and put to flight, and she would have handed it back to me with calmness and contempt. She has said as much as that since. But how Miss Fyler raged ! Lorana never should marry a beggarly fellow like that—never ! She would leave all her money to Rabzemon Fyler, so she would. That enraged Lora. She told her dear aunt to do as she pleased in that respect; she was glad Uncle Rabzemon would have the money; he and his ten children needed it far more than we did; and as to allowing Aimt Fyler or Aunt Anybody to choose her husband for her, that was simply impossible. Now, Miss Fyler hated her brother Rabzemon worse than she did me, but flesh and blood could not bear Lora’s impudence she said —(I thought she was sponge and whalebonebefore). At any Lora’s hom* was made unpleasant

enough for her; but it all drew her nearer to me, and defeated its own end, for she consented to marry me in June. Now arose many councils as to ways and means. We could not be married at Miss Fyler’s, and she had become so openly outrageous that she declared she would lock Lora up if she had the least idea I would try to marry her; but she knew I wouldn’t; I was only a fortune-hunting scamp, and now I knew that Squire Coe had made her will, and all her money would go to foreign missions, folks would see how soon I would be missing. It was in vain I tried to convince Lora that all this wild talking would amount to nothing. She had heard so much of it that her ears and nerves tingled with the long dissonance, She was afraid to be married openly in the Canaan church, and at length (as I still enrage her by saying) she all but asked me to elope with her I Of course I was delighted with the idea; that was what the Lord of Burleigh did with his village love, before he brought her to the castle, I began to feel a little uplifted, as the Scotch say, but suddenly Lora made one of her surprising revolutions, and declared she wouldn’t marry me at all, it was such a fuss; she had no proper home; she would live an old maid to the end of her days, so she would.

‘Just like Aunt Fyler,’ I acquiesced. Then she had to laugh, but it was almost a week before I could cdax and reason her back into her first assent to my plans. So we settled that she should go to Great Barrington in the May vacation, and spend a week there with an intimate friend, and have a little dressmaking done; that would throw Aunt Fyler off her guard. Further, to do this I was to stay in Canaan, and meet her on a certain day in Great Barrington, where she was to get on to the train I should come in, and we would proceed to Pita field, where an old college friend of mine was settled. He was to marry us, and then we would take a brief tour to H , where I told her I was to have a position in a lawyer’s office, and a thousand dollars a year; all of which was true, and we all know it is not always necessary to tell the whole truth. I never have believed myself that C. Washington did that, whatever other exploits in the line of veracity he is traditionally credited with. By this time Uncle James (!) had sent Lora a soft, thick gray silk from New York, and the prettisst little hat, or bonnet, or something, to wear on her head; that was gray too, with bunches of purple velvet pansies on it. There was no letter, although Lora had written to tell him of her engagement, and then thanked him for the jet trinkets. She found out afterwards that Uncle James never got her letter. I don’t know how he should, for she gave it to me to mail, and I thought best to forget it. J had a dear old maid cousin in New York who knew a great deal better than either Lora or I what she needed. So I told her she must be married in that dress and bonnet, they were so pretty, and after much skirmishing she consented, and went off, leaving me in Canaan to get through the intervening week. At last the day came, and I took the express train for Pittsfield that went through Canaan about 3 p.m. It seemed to be very long before we got to Great Barrington, and when I wanted to get off at the front end of the car the conductor turned me back to the rear door. I stood there eyeing the platform anxiously; nobody like Lora was there. I might not have known her in colors and veiled, but I knew I should recognise that hat, even to the little gleaming silver-grey veil that half covered it. No one had entered at the front door. As I went out from the rear, I caught a quick view of some one in black, with a deep green veil, coming in, and then there was a lame woman climbing the steps painfully, and at least six behind her, but not one of them Lora. A cold chill went to my heart. I felt sure she was ill. I jumped from the train as it started, measuring my length on the dirty platform, and picking myself up, went up the street to inquire my way to the house of Lora’s friend. She, it seemed, - lived a mile from the station, and when I got there was gone out to tea. I inquired if Mrs Case was there, to my great delight found she was, sent up my card, and in five minutes found myself face to face with a most forbiddinglooking female, in a green colico gown and black lace cap, trimmed with blue ribbon. She looked at me over her 'gold spectacles, just like Aunt Fyler. My knees shook, and I meekly remarked, * I wanted to see Mrs Case.’ * That’s my name,’ was the severe reply. - ‘ But I thought—l believe— Isn’t there another Mrs Case staying with Miss Hosford ?’ ‘Oh, the Widder Case! Yes, she went away this afternoon. ’ I could not make inquiries of her. Another Mrs Case ? how I hated the name ! So I inquired out the place where Miss Hosford was tea-drinking, found her after a half-mile walk, introduced myself, and found that Lora had gone by the train I came on. Here was a complication! How could I have missed her ? Miss Hosford—a pretty, rosy little creature —seemed to pity me sincerely, and suggested that perhaps her veil concealed her too effectually. ‘ But I should have known that dress and hat anywhere,’ I said. ‘ I studied them well to be sure of it.’ ‘Oh dear !’ exclaimed she. * She was in one of her old black dresses, and had on a green veil. She meant to dress in Pittsfield. She said those things were too bridal looking to travel in. She didn’t want to be advertised in the cars ! ’ That was so like Lora I had to laugh. But what would she do in Pittsfield till I got there ? To he continued.