Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1872-11-21

it might, and he was hungry for the
love and confidence that had never been
his. SO | was afraid he would miss
this little sparkle Of girlhood and warm
youth, and find the void deeper when
it had gone out.
To the very last day Rosa kept her
place by my chair, and to the very last
the New Zealander kept his place by
her, when no one younger stepped in
to cary her off, which was pretty often,
to be sure. Then he always went quiet
ly away himself with kind of grave
regret in his face On this last morn
ing Miss Armour had left us along
with a young lawyer, to drop oranges
and lemons among the steerage passen-
gers, when | noticed the New Zealand
er looking after her with a sadder re-
gret than usual-almost pain-in his
eyes. He had such handsome, dark
eyes! | could see that without my
glasses.
"Now," said | to myself, Il hope he
isn't going to get soft, a sensible, gen
tlemanly, agreeable man like him, and
quite old enough to be her father :!
And so 1 looked at him to see if he was,
when suddenly he turned upon me.
"At least you might have written,
Agatha Wells !" said he sharply
| started, as you may think, to hear
my own name spoken so familiarly by
a stranger, when, looking again, behold,
I saw beneath the bronze, and under
the wrinkles and behind the beard, a
face that, twenty years before, was the
dearest inf the world to me-the face of
Duncan Ashley! We parted one day
expecting to meet on the next, but
that evening he was call away, and
wrote instead of coming. In the let
ter, he said what he had said before
with his eyes-yes, those same beauti-
'ful eyes-that | was the choice Of his
heart and the desire Of his life.
ANSWER me-" said he; II cannot
wait till see you"
SO answered "a long, foolish letter,
though there was no need of writing
for he had read all | could say long be-
fore, with those eyes Of his. Then |
watched and waited for him, but never
saw him or heard one word more. If
you are young, you can imagine the
slow dying out of hope and expecta-
ton; and if you are old, you know how
such things can be lived over and hid
den in secret graves.
But now, as though the graves had
been opened and the Judgment set,
come this sudden reproachful question
up from the buried past. | fairly
caught my breath, as turned back
my eyes and looked him in the face
again.
''Forgive me-" said he, directly, in a
gentler tone. II did not mean to
speak you brought it out with your
own eyes that questioning turn was
so familiar. OF course you were quite
right, and l never blamed you. | never
meant you should see me again, but the
temptation to feel myself beside you,
only to be in the soothing charm of
your presence, was too great. 1t has
been blessing I.shall carry with me
all the rest of my life.
He was rising to 90 away, but | put
out my hand. Il did write, Duncan
Ashley" said |; 'the letter must have
gone wrong
"You did-you wrote!" he cried,
back in his chair again, and
looking at me eagerly. "What did
you say"
"There was only one thing | could
say, and | said that | answered, blush
ing as though | had just written the
letter
A middle-aged woman in hood and
waterproof! But, dear me it was only
my face that was middle-aged, after
all my heart was as young and silly as
ever. And as for Duncan's face. the
marks of care, and thought, and time
fell off, leaving in it only the eternal
youth Of love.
1t was the old story of a lost letter,
and the older story of proud man,
believing himself rejected and humilia-
ted, and fleeing to the ends of the earth
with his pain.
"Twenty precious years wasted !"
said my New Zealander. "We will
not be separated another day while we
both live. There is a clergyman among
our passengers, and we will be married
this very hour.
That was so like his headlong decis-
ions! Certainly he did need sober
second thought like me for ballast.
"That cannot be-" | cried, "the GER
mony wouldn't be legal without a Ii
cense or something, and l would by no
means do anything so sensational and
conspicuous"
But, bless your heart | might as
well have tried to wipe up the Atlantic
with my pocket-handkerchief He was
so grieved, and so impatient, and so
resolute (and, indeed, when one comes
to think of it twenty years IS long
enough for an engagement,) that | fin
ally dropped off my waterproof and
my sea-sickness, and stood up behind
the pinnacle, and was married before
eight bells that very morning-ring
and all. Duncan produced it from a
small casket, where he had carried it
in his waistcoat pocket for the whole
twenty years.
81 could never bear to put the little
thing away" said he, looking at it ten