The Cincinnati daily star. [volume] ([Cincinnati, Ohio]) 1875-1880, 1876-06-07
Dolly and Her Two Lovers.
THarper's Bazar.l


Oliver, all dimples and dancing eyes and
ringlets, warm tints and generous out
lines. While he painted he could not
forbear to make love. He had come fresh
from a great city, where ladies in vel
vets and jewels, with fine manners and
elegant surroundings, stood at his gates,
crowded his studio, sent him perfumed
notes, besieged him with Invitations.
cheapened favor for him, fattered and
Ilawned about him, and perhaps turned
his head ii they did not touch his heart;
| was he to be won by the poise OF a pretty
head, by the pensiye trick of two brown
ewes. by the tremor of dimple, or the
touch and 60 of a blushp Could he al.
| lord such an indulgence? Old Mrs. Oil
yer, Dolly's grandmother, was only the
widow of isherman; Phil. Faraday
should never have thought OF looking for
| a wife among such people. Would Dolly
| know how to hold her own in the salons
of his world? Would she, who seemed
/ to belong to this innocent rural life as
much as the daisies belonged TO the
| fields or the Water-lfty to the ponds
would she not be ill at ease and mis-
placed in fashionable drawing.rooma
Should he never be ashamed OF her as
his wife?
But the affair progressed in spite of
the afternoon in the woods, he spent the
| evening in her grandmother's porch,
with the old lady nodding in the back
| ground behind her spectacles, dreaming
| of the days when her husband came
| rowing home at sunset, with the 'scaller
IherriR,n and her little children cfapped
their hands and threw kisses across the
wrinkled reach of the sea. Dolly showed
him all the fair, sequestered spots where
Nature was at her best, all the solItudes
the neighborhood afforded; she showed
him where the tanager built, where tue
maIden-hair terms and the rosy Inner
were at home. They borrowed a wherry
and went shooting along the still ponds,
among tile fragrant water-lilies and the
spicy wild azaleas, and followed tue
| Winaings of the inland river, shut in in
sweet seclusion by its embowered banks
and oyerarching trees. What bHef eye-
nings were those, when tue still stream
| was only broken by the beat of their
oars or the plunge of some magnificent
plckerel, wnen all the considerations
| We're reflected in it's crystal depth, ana
they seemed to cut their way through a
sea OF stars, aud found strange, deli
cious echoes in ambush on The shore,
Jealous OF their songs and catchesl
.DolIv, who loves your he called;
and dozen airy voices from distance
beyond distance replied:
"You! you'll yeu!'
"Do YOU think The echo is right, Doro,
thea ?" he asked.
"How do kpow?' she laughed. "Pm
wiling to take the 'echo's word for it,
howeVer-only my names not D0rothea
sir; Pm called Dolly, il you please"
"Dolly's milknaid's name; IL doesn'I
describe you my rose in bloom"
s'Rm sorry you don't like IL; but yor
needn't use 80 olten," she laughed
and the echo caught the bubble, and al
tue hillside r9sounded with tre at
tempted strain. "Hark! the echo il
Laughing atSou"
Let tnose laugh who win," said he
resting on his oars. 81 suppose thi,
river finds the sea somewhere. What i
we should follow it, nail some foreign
bound ship, and count this side of tht
world Welllost for each othery' 1t wal
in his mind that it would go easier will
him to renounce his nardly-earne,
naine and live all obscure lille abroat
than either to lose Dolly or pass through
the ordeal Of a messailiance, OF intro
ducing her to those who couldn't se,
her with his eyes, and yet whose goot
opinion oil his choice was necessary d
his complete happiness. if he would liv,
amol 6 them,
Nv nat need Of that?" she answere,
) him, simply.
"Woul1 you like TO go to Venice, Dol
lyW
81 don't know. What is it like?
'tIt would be like heaven there-wit
you" under his breath; but we won
20 tonight" turning the BOATS head
"What is il like? 1t is city of ruine,
palaces and pictures; the lion Of st
Mark watches oyer it; Its canals thronj
with dusky gondolas; it's a, spot wher
one may live out the poem of lite am
love without care ior The world beyon.
with me, Dollyf Will you think abou
itW Ana Dolly did think about it. Sh
u sed to dream Of winding up long sta,
sown streams to the murmur OF music
beneath the shadow OF marble ruins
but she did not go to Venice. He brough
her pictures Of 1t, he readther books an
poems about it, he fired her iniaginatio
with his Word-painting, and Then be
!. '.smilings put the question by" All
f1oated contehtediy upon the little streat
bout Hedgevilie, anu tished in the pools
and sketehed glimpses Of Arcadia, as
; there were no Venice, and no to-niorrow v
and no reckoning day. And by and bi
when the leaves began to drop relut
|, family, and the blackberry vines dresse
up the stnhble with knots and lringes q
scarlet, be bethought himself thai til
summer was over and done, and d 0risi
was at hand.
II No doubt there was great struggl
, between the .incllnatiohs Of his hear
and his over regard tor Mrs. Grundy an
} family before he took that long, last fo,
with Dolly upon the river, ana made
dozen obscure apologies for himseli
which Dolly only comprehended latel
He could not even deny himself that Las
; tender pressure OF the little hand, no
, the last lingering kiss that sealed hi
resolve. Next morning he was up be
: times, and away to his studio and hi
sisters, and Dolly, was waiting an,
watching behind her easement, lik
J poor lone Hannah. Only as day ate
day melted into the, vast twilight abys
, of the past did she come to comp chem
, that he had been free IL live his lie with
} out her, ana that he had chosen as world
, iy prudence dictated.
"D0llyp he had once said, not 60 yer.
long ago, cit would he TOO selfish Lor mi
to tell you all that Ia in my heart. Tbi
pleasant valley is yavr sphere; yoi
, would pine in the artificial atin0spher,
outside 1t. Should newer forgive myseI
, ior bringing Such tfbdble upon you iol
my sakev And how could Dolly tel
him she was willing to rlst transplant
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