Delaware inquirer. (Wilmington, Del.) 1859-18??, 1859-12-17

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ministerial errand, he ever propounded to him
self at that moment of his setting out, ant
which kept his mind excited and confused til
he again dismounted at his own door. On al
most every such occasion the whole panorama
of his courtshp used to pass anew before him
from the evening, five years before, which he
first spent in his lIelen's company, to the houi
when, amid weeping bridesmaids, he held hei
hand in his, and felt himself moving, MS it
seemed, along with her, through lane of i'm
peding sounds and outstrctched aerial fingers
He called to mind, first, those dark and wet
winter nights, due to slumberous and nutri-
tious Exegcsis at his own fircsidc, but which
had found him still truant under her window,
pacing the pavement with timorous football,
watching but for the blessing of her shadow il
Il might fit across the blind And then, how
these window-watchings had been changed
into visits and how, through long tangled
avenue Of hopes, fears, joys, arrangements,
and bitter jealonsies, he had still followed her,
fill he won her Won lerl ny, but how? This
was the question which came again and again
door of his memory. That his Helen had never
been to him soft and yielding maiden, listen
ing, pleased, and eager, with downcast eye
lids, MS if drinking in her lords wisdom, this
| he knew; but it had been no matter of solici-
tude Ito him in taking the step of marriage; nay,
rather it had been reason, whimsy, lying
Mt the root of his love- mol his Helen was no
toy, to be wooed languidly with smiles and
half-shut eyes; she was queen exactng in
her grace, it was pain of the whole spirit to
be near her. Not to he kind and beaming, hut
to be stately, sad, pcrmissive; this was the
Helen he loved, the Helen of his imagination;
so that the very sound of her name, the very
word when written on paper, had something
| In it marble and Grecian. From the glances,
the bushes of such being to have inferred
the assurance of affection, in this there was
indeed ecstacy too great for mortal. So once
he had reasoned, spurning the experience
which ever and anon would appeal to his
slrewder part, suggesting that the real Helen
was probably daughter of Eve, and that it
might be not her, but rib warm from his own
sue, anu InHuc III ner llkenesS, lnut nc was
worshiping. Now, however, Experience came
back satiric, demonac, polite as If with inqui-
ries how he felt Oh, horror had he accepted
us evidence of n woman's love marks and to-
kcns which derived all their value from
youths mistake as to what it was Sossible for
n woman to be- which, had the object Of his
passion been the incarnate essence of all thai
was earnest and sorrowful in her sex, had yet
been too little? Those glances, bushes, was
it possible that they could have been not loves
but some devilish counterfcit's, the passing
evidences in the countenancc of some indefina-
bic spasm of the spirit at the moment? That
listlessness, that seeming want of interest in
things present, that so beautiful parting of the
lips, could they be, not, as he had imagined
them the native style and expression of II GER
tain high and rare order of spirit, hut mere
womanly hcart-weariness, which might be
traced to cause?
Day after day did he rack himself thus. Fain
would he have settled in the conclusion that
Helen was unhappy only in her present lot, in
her removal from her old circle, and from the
hlbnly-cultufeu society 10 winch sne nau Dcen
accustomed. That she should be so would in
deed have been bitter discovery, because il
would have shown him how little it lay with
him by his love, or any cndeavors, to make up
for the loss of those things which she regret |
ted because, in fact, it would have revealed |
to him that shut up in that spot of earth |
where God or his fate had appointed him, he |
must labor on, a lonely man. Still, even in |
this supposition, he had hope for her, that |
time,with its all-smoothing hand might smooth |
this roughness also And oh, how gladly |
would he have taken refuge in this conclusion
with all its misery, and hid his face in it, so |
that he could but shut out from his view the |
alternative which waited for him, as with |
dragon-mouth ellis Helen-she loved ano-
therl' The thought would come /; and, as it |
came, through love- through professional hab- |
it of spirit, and whatever of truer Christian |
grace there was in him, the black blood would |
come rushing, boiling, till his veins filed with |
the fiendsh fluid, were stiffened like cordage |
in his body, and he stood, that clear-souled |
youth, his throat swollen with rage and his |
face gnashed and disshreyelled into the scowl |
of Judas. Oh but was il possible? Granted |
that his infatuation, his blindness, might have |
led him to such horrid issue as this blasted |
wedlock, could she, this woman, who was at |
least wcll-born and honorable, have so foully |
II. l..