Litchfield enquirer., 1876-04-13

solemnly. 'sitll end in an attack of braiL- fever or something if this thing goes on. l begln now, whenever I see that gray en- velope as night, to feel the top of my head coming off <,
 Hadn't you bett2r read it, and let me take 1t along with me ? said Jack.
 ''Oh, l don't think I need read it, do I? Take it along; I've got work enough here to last me all night. And just sweep those other letters into the drawer. will you, Jack The very sight of them makes me nervous; they're notices, or invitations, or something in that line, and can't go out anymore: it takes all my timeto copy your letters out. You'd leave out that rigmar- ole about the brook, then, would you, Jack? And yet don't know as it Il do: She tells me she has learned to love me through my letters, that these have won to be mine. guess I'll leave the pond in Jack. But why in thunder did you make 1t wind in and out,that way? By love, I wouldn't want to get lost in that wood of yours, and have to follow. your stream to get out Do stay and dine, Jack
 But Jack was already speeding up the street at q break neck pace, his hat pulled down over his eyes, an abstracted, dreamy expression on his face On he went through the jostling throng, and never had life seemed so unreal to Jack Spring as upon that Shistling March night. It was all like big grim, pantomime among death 's-heads, and he the most grinning, tricky. disreputable phantom of them ali The only grip he held upon reality at all seemed to consist m this little quiet en- velope of gray in his vest pocket, upon
 rb bic ho,,l ol1 And yet with all the joy 1t gave him-the best and brightest he had ever known there was secret gnawing agony at his heat. The sweetest poison ever held to the lips of a despairing mortal was the break ing of that original seal and the reading of that letter by the iickerng light of his guttering twopenny candle
 ''I wonder" it began, ''if you love my letters as do yours; if they are to you what yours are to me: if this dear little sheet goes to you brimful of the magnetic power of love, when you. open it you tremble and grow pale-you are blind for the moment with tears of rapture o my love, my love P
 And Jack SpringeEgroans, and dashes his hand to hls eyes to put away those same binding tears, but not all of rapture and throws himself upon the shabby cot in the corner of his room, and calls him. self a wretch, a villain, Q scoundrel of the deepest dye. But two hours after, he still sits there and writes. although the crazy old window shutters rattle and bang, 8 small hurricane plays about his half-froz- en legs, his hand is numb with cold, and the miserable overworked candle splits and remonstrates, and finally goes out in huff, leaving poor Jack Tn the middle of passage so beautifully fine and intricate so delicately bred and rounded, that 1t Is fit to raise the ambrosial locks of Howard Hastings upon his comedy head.
 "Her letters!' he murnurs, as he throws himself into the disheveled heap of bed-clothes on the cot. q wonder how l lived without them !. And after all, why grudge myself this abstract happiness Why find fault with negative joy held out to me by niggardly destiny? Not one other soul on earth could answer to mine but this, and why should l cavil and decry the mode with which it has pleased fate to bring these two starving spirits in communication with each other? A little while and the whole thing will go out for me in darkness, like yonder pit of tallow ; then the play will go on for the rest, the puppets come and go but what does it matter ?'
 But 1t did matter materially
 When the cold March winds had ceased to make a bowling wilderness of Jack s lodgings and romping- place of his weak lungs and asthmatic chest, when little crocuses and primroses and all the pallld delicacies of spring wel pushed aside for the voIuptuous bloom of summer, when the splendid roses of Dion were at Miss Clara Armstrong's breast and in her hair, and out on that Western borber nature was in Q bewilderment of richness and perfume, and Howard Hastings, at the close of his long -yearned-for holiday, ri- ding along in the handsomest team that conld be got out that way for love or money, dressed in that perfect taste that only New York salesman who has made the thiug a study and a success can dress. looking his brightest and best. feeling his happiest and most hopeful with this beau tlful brilliant woman at his side his. prom ised wife, with his future father-in- law s magnificent mansion looming there in the distance, and the welcoming form of the millionaire full of significant encourage ment OF the balcony-with all. this beanti- ful present to enjoy and the grand future to look forward to, Miss Armstrong had just made little remark that turned all his delight to gall and bitterness, and made the whole landscape out oftune and harsh.
 ''l ought to have put duster in my trunk. /" Howard had said,, when he found the red clay fecking his fine toilet. '1 don't know how forgot duster."
 Then Miss Armstrong had turned to him. and that soft, low, yet striking con- tralto of hers was full of q suppressed ag- ltation
 You forgot something of infinitely more importance than that, Howard" she said. You forgot your soul. Why in the world, when you came to me, did you leave your soul behind you?"
 "What-what did you say 2 stammer. ed Howard, half hoping it might be an- other word in their amusing Western dia- lect. Soul what is that Clara ?"
 Miss Armstrong's laugh was always mu- sical, but at this time there was some thing bitter in 1t that jared on Towards ear
 GA soul, she said, ''is an intangible, idealistic part of the human mechanism. with which we think and dream, appre- clate, and sometimes. love. There are different grades of souls, Howard, but I happen to know that yours is of souls the "ost exquisite and beautiful. Oh why did you leave it behind you, Howard :? You have not been able during your whole stay to think or dream, appreciate or-or love. Oh Howard?" said Miss Armstrong-and she put her kid glove upon his-arm with pleading yehemence her eyes overfowed with tears the roses at her bosom trembled it seemed to poof Howard that they almost grew pale-''oh, Howard. where is that beautiful soul that has taught ne the mystery of love, that has opened for me the portals of para disc? Howard, Hosard, I beseech of you, throw off this cruel mask Bid that soul come to you. It is not like dus- ter: You can have it here this moment if you will. Oh for my sake and your own, have it now, at once Y
 Towards thoughts flew like telegram direct to the hot, murky, deleterions at mosphsre of the packing-room of Grim shaw, Grind and Co., 4 halo of gas and heat almost shut him out from that soul which Miss Armstrong coveted, but 1t