Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1876-10-20
waiting for an Answer.

waning IOF an AhhWeEs
My sioryP My lifep Oh, it has been too
uneventful, too simple in its incidents.
could tell the sorrows of others, but my
own-welI, well as you will. You shall
hear. The wound has never been healed /;
and if 1 put my hand above ii, the place
still throbs, even as it will beat aud ache
till kindly Nature says to me, "Sleep, poor
weary one and rest" Aud then peaceful
ly, trustingly, tr and with a simple hope of
forgiveness, may sleep that long sleep
which they say SO fippantly has no waking;
but which has a waking, as every lesson
which we learn in life persists in teaching
us.
You will smile, perhaps, when tell you
that was once what people called pretty;
that this pale-hued face was once plump
and rosy, these sad eyes bright, and this
gray, scant hair golden-brown, long, and
flowing. But why should 1 think you
would smile7 Do l not know that You
must have seen the gay young plant put
ting out its tender leaves in spring, grow
ing green and luxuriant in summer, ripe
and ruddy in autumn, and gray, bent, aud
withered in sge2 And should be pitied
because 1 have but followed in the way of
Nature2 Surely not. 1t is not for that 1
ask your sympathy, but for the blight that
fell upon the young plant, and scared and
scathed II so that 1t seemed for months as ir
ii W ould die; but it lived, as l have lived
to tell you this.
Do you know that wondrous feeling
which comes in the early year, and that
strange sense of keen delight, that elastici-
ty Of spirit, when, full of youth and hope,
the very tears of joyous sensibility start to
the eyes as you wander amidst the trees
and flowers in spring2 l remember how
felt, oh ! so well, even though it is nov
forty years ago, and was twenty.
Jack and were engaged. 1t was all such
a simple, homely affair. We had known
each other for years,-the children neigh
boring farmers. Jack-I will call him by
the simple old pet-name of those days
Jack had been away at good school, and
being bright, and shrewd, and clever, he
had won his way on, taking TO engineering
instead of his fathers farm life; and now
1t had come to this, that he had been stay
ing at home a month, previous to going out
TO a good appointment in Melbourne.
That month in spring, how it passed |!
We had met again and again, and in his
honest, manly way, he had asked me to be
his wife.
"You know, Grace, that I have always
loved you," he said; land now I have
hopes and prospects, ii cannot be wrong 10
ask you for your promise"
We were walking by the riverside as he
said this, and how we'll l can picture it all,
the soft, gliding water mirroring the trees
on the opposite bank, the young green buds
just breaking forth from their cases, and,
above all, the soft, tender blue Of the spring
sky,-the blue he had told me was like my
eyes.
"Do you want me 10 promise, Jack?" 1
said simply, looking up in his face.
"No, darling; 1 am satisfied" he cried,
as his strong arms held me to his broad
breast, and that was all. No oath could
have bound me more tightly to him. 1 felt
that was his wife whenever he should
come 10 claim me.
We were late that evening, and entered
the house gayly, for there had been so
LiuCH ~ Nalh VI anu lA"b' ~ hAoheh .
time Jack was going to Melbourne; then
he was to work very hard for three years,
and come and fetch me TO be his wife.
That month glided by, and the last day
had come. 1t was, as 1 told you, spring
time,-joyous springtime, with the haw-
thornes snowy blossoms, the apple-trses
pink, and the pear-trees pearly with their
pyramids of flowers. Every meadow
passed was starred with golden butlercups,
and from every spray the birds trilled or
jerked forth their merry songs of hope and
love.
could not feel sad, even though was
going TO meet Jack for the last walk before
he went away; but, as 1 said, mingled with
the feeling of ecstasy there was strange
tearfulness of eye, and my breath would
come at times with sob.
He was by the stile, waiting for me,-the
stile down by the long mead, halfway be-
tween the two farms and as he took my
two hands in his, neither Of us spoke, but
stood gazing away over the woodland and
meadow, all clad in their wondrous beauty,
and listened to the birds. Now it was the
sofl, tender COO of the stock dove from the
wood, now the jerked-out twitterlng song
of the linnets; then, soft and mellow, from
the thick hedgerows fioated toward us the
Auty notes of the blackbrd, while far Oh
high trilled away the larks, singing one
against the other to their mates, setting In
the tall grass Of the golden meads.
We could not talk; our hearts were toe
full, for Jack was to be off at daybreak the
next morning. But there was no need fol
words. We loved each other in the sim
pie Nature-taught way that has been sinot
the world began; and we knew that eVSry