Nashville patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1858-1860, 1858-06-12
Years and Years Ago.
ICONCLUDED.1

This was easily done; proud and elate, 1
boldly presented myself at the presbytery,
and within month we were married, despite
all of the delays and difficulties that the
French laws, which seem especially framed to
throw every possible obstacle, hindrance and
vexation in the way of the impatient lover,
could find to circumvent us.
| look back now on the time, and see
through my spectacles-though little dim
now and then-not myself, and my Suzanne,
the wife of my youth, as L saw her in those
days; but boy and girl / remember to have
known then. A hopeful, happy, foolish pair;
brimful of youth, and life, and love;
seeing all things, each other included, quite
other than they were; yet so confident in
themselves, in their experience, their ideas,
their impressions:-living from day to day
like the birds on the branch, as if all the
world were their stOrehouse, and no to-mor-
row were behind them. Quarrelling and
making sweet friends again; fretting about
look or word; testing at questions involving
the most important interests; avertcd looks
and murmured reproaches over a flower pre-
scented and lost, not a thought or care for
gold squandeTed.
The place was so endrared to me, and
Suzanne and her father felt so reluctant to
part that resolved my father, who made
us small. although reasonable allowance,
not objecting-tO settle, for a time at all
events in the neighborhood of La Rochelle
So we took little house in the midst of a
garden, within five minutes walk of the pres
bytery, and there we set up our household,
served by plump ROchellaise damsel, whose
clearstarched capot- and gold earrings,
heart and cross, were on Sundays, the admir-
alton of the place; and lad emancipated
from sabots, to work in the garden and help
Mamie in the rougher occupations of the
house. He fell in love with her | remember,
h, hi h,,. h,
being rather a belle. and virtuous withal, she
was moved, by all these united considerations,
to box his ears on his attempting to demon
strate the state of his feelings by trying to
kiss her when, attired as above recorded, her
beauty shone forth ttoo resplenden for him to
succeed in controlling his youthful passion.
Before n year was out, the two children had
a doll to put in the playhouse, and to play
with from morning till night. They nursed it
alternately, and worshipped it, and had
moments of jealousy about it, and wondered
over it, and found il miracle of genius and
intellect, when to stranger eyes it was capable
of nothing but sleeping and sucking and
stretching its toes before the fire.
When it should walk 0 when il should
walk. and when it should speak its mothers
name,-When it did. the child-mother Law in
her grave in the Protestant cemetery at La
Rochelle, aud the boy-father took it there to
Strew flowers on the turf.
When | first awoke from the stunning
effect of the blow, / was like a ship that
struck full by a tremendous breaker, stands
for a moment paralyZed and grieving then
staggers blindly on without rudder or COM
pass, both swept away in the general ruin.
The wild spirit within me, which the peace
full and innocent happiness of the last two
years had soothed and stilled, broke forth
again, and my first impulse was to rush from
the scene of my lost felicity and in life of
reckless adventure seek to lose myself and
the recollection of all | had won, all l had
been bereft of in that short space.
Thank God, had the child. That saved
me.
And now at twenty-one, when most men
have hardly made their first start in life, l..
father and a widower, had passed the first
stage Of my manhood's career, aud was
about to gather up the shattered fragments
OF my youths hopes and prospects, and try
and patch them together to carry me through
the rest of il.
At first my father, now all affection and
sympathy, since the change of my marriage
had brought, urged my returning with the
child TO England. But this strange feeling.
partaking perhaps more of jealously than
anything else, made me decline doing. On
Mabel, 'Ma-bellen as Suzanne used to call
her, half-beieying that that was really the
translation of the name. had now concentrated
all the love and interest OF my life. Here she
was all my own, / was all hers; nothing
nobody, could lay any claim to the love, the
time or the attention OF either, so as TO dis
tract il from the other. No one could exert
Influence or authority over either TO the
exclusion or prejudice, in however slight
a degree, of the other.
Ny chAld had no mother: no one else there
fore, however near or dear, should In any
degree supply her place but herself would
be all and everything TO her. and If she never
missed Der mother, il should be TO me alone
sue should owe it. A foolish thought Fer
haps, perhaps a selfish one; yet who shall
say, seeing from what il doubtless saved me!
Happily the child was healthy, sweet tenn
pered. and really. all paternai illusions
apart. slngularly beautiful and intelligent
Ny baby. my little Queen Nab l see her
now. as ia her black frock and straw has
used 20 carry her forth at first In the still
warm evenings, when the glow and the glare