Muscatine weekly journal. [volume] (Muscatine, Iowa) 185?-1890, 1857-11-28

CONVERSION OF A FLIsT.
80 / really wonder that you are no
yet married, Mabel" said Alice Elem
ing, turning from the mirror where sht
was adjusting her hair, and addressing
her friend Mabel Heath, who reclinet
listlessly on a sofa with an open vol
nme in her hand.
sDo you Z" responded Mabel, care
lessly glancing over the top Of her book
while she turned the leaf and continued
reading.
Indeed do !; and I think besides
it is very selfish for you to bury your
seifin book, when | am longing ia
hear your voice. We have been SC
long separated that ! am jealous OF
whatever divides your attention with
myself: and you know that one week
Of the three to which you have limited
yourstay with me is already past, and
when the remaining two are ended, who
can tell when we may meet again 20
"True," said Mabel, rising and lay
ing aside her book "but forgive me
now, and l will try not to be so thought
less again"
"Thank you, Bella dear; but as |
was saying, l cannot but wonder, that
while all our less beautiful and talented
schoolmates are married and settled in
life, you alone, the brightest and fair
est Of the band, are still in maiden
meditation Free l am sure, had |
been in your place surrounded by such
host Of admirers as used to follow in
your train. I should have lost my heart
to some one Of them long ago"
Every likely - said Mabel, and
there was tinge of satire in her voice
and a slight curl of her beautiful lip
"but mine is not heart to be lost so
easily. Indeed" she added with laugh,
81 have tried dozen times to give it
away, but the perverse thing refuses to
20 at my bid ing, and sticks to me like
the curse of Cain, in spite Of all my
efforts to be rid of it. And most
troublesome possession it is, assure
YOU; always insisting on being heard
when I least cared to listen to it, and
compelling me to obey its dictates, in
stead of consulting my interests, as a
rational being should"
elbow unreasonable! No wonder
YOU would like to be rid of it ; but can
you tell me how many of your rejected
suitors have committed suicide or died
of broken hearts in consequence of the
perversity Of the thing, as you call
it?"
Broken hearts, indeed! you are
very sentimental for a woman who has
been four years married. l have no
doubt you think that had you rejected
Heryey Fleming, he would have hung
himself on the nearest tree; while | am
lust as certain that he would have fall
len in love with the next pretty face he
met, and been ready to endorse the
sentiment of somebody who told more
truth than all the bag crowned senti-
ever wrote, when he said,
s F rst love is a pretty romance,
But not quite so lasting as second,
or where one aWakes from its trance
There's great stock Of bliss in second.
mi thouah poets their raptures may tell
" f0 ha toat
first lave is all verySwcll,
But beiies 9 me the last loves the best"
eI rene, nber when I fancled that
masculine hearts were really composed
,f as brittle materials as poets and nov
elists would h ave us think but long
since learned that they were made Of
sterner stuff than to be shivered by
woman's frow n"
"But how did you gain that knowl-
edge? One would suppose you had
been Tilted yourself, instead Of triAing
with others as you are accused Of do
ing"
5.It is easy to see that you have pro-
voked this discussion only to make me
tell my experience; and as you have
such faith in attachments begun in
childhood, I will 60 back to our school
days and begin with Arthur Wells.
You remember Arthur with his slight
form, gentle manners, and pretty girl
ish face, and how you laughed when l
told you I thought nature to blame for
not having made him a girl, and his
coarse, hoydenish, .romping sister Sa-
rah q boy. There was delicacy in
Arthur's attention, quite unusual in a
and Of all my stripping
admirers he was the favorite. When,
Mt eighteen !, ears of age, he went away
to learn book keeping in the counting
house Of a wealthy uncle in distant
city, parted with him with sincere re-
greet.
"When, after two years, he came
back to spend few weeks at home, he
had become tall, graceful young man,
but with the beaming eyes und silken
hair Of his boyhood, and everybody re-
marked how handsome he had grown
but thought little of his manly beauty,
for my heart was lying low, in the grave
Of my loved and honored father, who
had gone down in the strength Of man.
hood to the silent city of the dead.
And while 1 longed for sympathy in
this my first great sorrow, he talked
with boyish simplicity Of my looking SO
oddly in my sable weeds, and wondered
that I, who used to be so merry, could
be so still and smile so sadly.
with his twenty years he was still
o boy in thought and feeling, while l,
who had seen but sixteen summers, was
an earnest, thoughtful woman; for
when the heart has learned how much