Litchfield enquirer., 1871-06-01

Amy put her hand on the handle, said with 8 slight hesitation, s' May I, might I spend an hour with you this eyening?" The simpleness and directness of the request took from it any appearance of singularity, and Amy answered mechanically, .' Yes, if you like, "sand heLleft her.
 2 All that afternoon, while reading aloud to Mrs. Heyward and walking with the children, her mind worked on this young mans looks and bearing, on what he had said to her. until he grew distinct and real with curious intensity and vividness. She felt that he was part of the world in which she was living, felt it instinctively, as much as if he had been bird or flow CT, as clearly as she felt the want of har- moDy between Ralph and the atmosphere about her.. This youth wLo had come in on her dream to-day had seemed the prop CT divinity of the spot; he might have been the spirit that dwelt in tree or a stream near by, and had embodied itself in human form the people her dream with something more life-like than bright flowers and broad leaved trees and balmy breezes.
 Victor Hayward was one of the rare men who unite intense masculinity and virility to the charm and attraction that is ordi- narily by common consent attributed sole. ly to women. He was an admirable specimen of that subtitle French saying of this century, i" Les races SC feminisent. , A man of this sort seems to understand woman like woman, and sympathize, at- tract, and absorb them like man. There is deep truth at the bottom of the fabled charm of Hermaphroditus.
 At twilight he came, and-but let them speak to us as they spoke to one another.
 " Did you really expect me, Miss Fortes- cue?"
 'I did, indeed, MT. Hayward. How could I help it?"
 "Only that you looked little doubtful of my intention when asked your permis. sion to come to-day"
 But I did not doubt you. I never doubt any one without cause; and that is not doubting them, but disbelieving.'
 Heavens, he said with sigh, ''what nature you must have, and what life you must have led!''
 His tone amazed her, why, she could not tell, and she said hastily, "I have seen men, 8 man at least, and man of the world too, who trusts his fellow creatures as matter of course, just as do."
 "Then he never lived, never loved"
 '" Love is not fever fit, Mr. Hayward. not morbid phrase of feeling through which the soul passes. Doubt and jealousy are not inseparable from it. It is a whole some feeling in sound nature."
 She said these words almost as Holcombe had said them. as he had said similar things thousand times to her, which she had accepted as truth with authority, al- belt no spirit within her bore witness to it. e oI almost black, as he looked earnestly at her and said, " You must have been papil of Holcombe's, as we'll as my brothers, that sounds so like him." r
 She grew first rosy red, and then the color deepened to intensity as she said, Y" MT. Holcombe has indeed been my teacher in all know of love. We are en- gagged to be married to one another"
 As she said this with as much calmness as she could muster, Victor, seizing both hands in his, as if by an irresistible inn pulse, cried. Do you mean 1t? You are engaged to Ralph Holcombe! It is not so; say it is not?'
 She trembled with the contagion of his emotion, but tried to draw away her hands and said, 7" am indeed, and you must not do this. How strange you are!'
 Listen" he said, rising to to his feet, You cannot, must not marry that man. You could love, you are made to love; and he is everything good and admirable if you will, but he could never interpret love to you. How can Holcombe weigh and meas ure such thing in his scales and by his rules? Love is not simply one ingredient, as he would have it, in a soberly com pounded draught; it's philter, poison. It's not, as he would tell you, bright thread in the sober web of life, scarlet re- lieving gray and brown, but the light of heaven shed upon the whole fabric till it all glitters like the sun, and every separate thread reflects the divine glory in rainbow heus. You have read history: were the great lovers of the world wise, we'll bal anced, and reasonable, and self-contained, as Holcombe's definition would make them? Did Mark Antony's hand hold out an even balance when he said, All for love, and the world we'll lost?' You have read poetry: pray tell me. dld you think the thing that poets sing of was creature of their fancy? No; we are all poets once, and that is when we love-" He paused. and went on in tone of suppressed emo- tion: Ton will think me 8 player-a mountebank; yoa will even perhaps scorn me if tell you the truth, and yet must tell it you. See. never saw you till this morning, know nothing of you. There is no sober second thought, no well-advised choice, no sense of congenial tastes and ac- cording views of life. Yet I love you. The genie de Uolupte looked from out your eyes this morning into mine. love you as you were meant to be loved, with love which would feed your soul. Did I not feel this, I should not have spoken; but am not dull at reading faces, and love gives double insight You were in harmony with those roses to-day, and when you lifted your face from them flushed with their sweetness and met my eyes, read possibilities of depths to sound and nights to scale, which that man could never pene trate or attain
 She started at his word; they were too true. He saw it, and went on: s'I love you with my soul l cannot reason of it; on- ly know. that it is true that I am yours, and life is all different color. And l will not let you go without struggle will fight for you, beg for you, live for you. You think this is not love. that it is unworthy the name, that it should be calm self.con. trolled sentiment. That may do for some creatures, but never for such asyou. What you want can give you, not hel' and he threw himself at her feet, all aglow with fire and importantly. He was lover to love, for his mood expressed itself in every look and gesture fully and perfectly; and with se :, <& xvc <,f 1<>~,<> I~s.L [