The Beaufort tribune and Port Royal commercial. [volume] (Beaufort, S.C.) 1877-1879, 1877-12-13
HER HEARTS SECRET.

"It you refuse Duncan Holcrott you
arc a complete idiot, Georgina Gilroy,
and I wash my hands of your affairs
altogether"
Mrs. Cassowin sails majestically from
the room where Georgina, her niece,
remains nervously clasping and unclasp'
ing her slender white fingers, and won,
dering why matrimony should be O
positive duty in the code by which she
had been educated. She is only twenty,
two, slender, fair, and looking about
sixteen, with her waving golden hair and
soft, brown eyes.
She has two hundred pounds year,
all her own. and why can't she be allowed
to live quiet life ulmolested.
Since her own parents died, about
three years ago, she had been dragged
from the country parsonage, in which
her father lived and died, saving the lit
tie fortune for Georgina by close econo-
nv, to her aunt's fashionable home, such
as her mother pined for throughout all
Georgina's childhood. -.
"When you marry, I hope you will
return to your proper sphere, Mrs.
Gilroy would say whenever she spoke OF
Georgira's future but she never needed
much in those days.
Sitting in Mrs. Cassowin's grand
drawing-room, waiting for Duncan Hol.
croft to come and propose to her, as her
aunt informed her he had requested
permission to do, Georgina, timid and
gentle, felt her whole being rise in re-
volt.
Was life to be 10 her what it was to
her aunt, round of calling, shopping,
party-goibg, party-giving, interviews
with dressmakers and milliners2 Could
she not escape to some locality where
there we're nobler aims and desires?
Where?
Mrs. Cassowin had expostulated in
vain. Hitherto, Georgina had been
gently firm.
But on this day even her courage failed
before her aunt's wrath at the proposal
to dismiss Duncan Holcroft.
He came across the wide drawing
room as she sat thinking, his football
unheard upon the soft carpet.
He was tall, erect, handsome, past
Fifty, yet not old; his eyes clear as a
boys, his iron-gray hair curly ard abun-
dant, his gray moustache giving mill
tary air to his well-cut features.
Faultless in attire, courteous in man.
ner, he also possessed half million at
fractions in solid investments.
But all else seemed to him worthless
compared to the possession of the slen-
der, pale child, who half buried in a
deep armchair, realized as yet nothing
of the yearning love in the large, dark
eyes fixed upon her.
It was scarcely to be supposed that
Duncan Holcroft, bachelor as he was,
had travelled over fifty years of life
with untouched heart, but he had lived
over all other love till this one came
and conquered him.
It stirred his heart with a sick pain,
when Georgina, looking up, paled to her
lips, while her eyes were full of fear and
trouble, seeing him. .
She had always given him frank,
cordial greeting, and he had hoped to
win sweeter tokens still from her soft
eyes and sweet lips, and instead he had
lost what was already given.
"Did you not expect me ?" he said,
gently; "you looked startled"
"I did not know you were here, and
it did startle me to see you so close be-
side me!' Georeina said, flaming
color shooting now over cheek and brow,
as she wished herself thousand miles
away.
He spoke to her gravely then, and
very, very gently, wooing her most ten
derly, eonsiderate of her youth, her t.
midity; and heartily ashamed, she could
only sob and shiver.
"Child," he said at last, "do dis
tress you? Am ] SO hateful to you
that"
But she interrupted him quickly:
"You are not hateful to me-" she
said, impulsively. 81 like you ever
ever so much, only-oh, why do you
want to marry me?"
He could not keep back smile,
though his heart throbbed heavily with
pain.
az love you, dear" he said: "I love
You far too well to wish to grieve you.
Shall we be friends still"
ooh, if you WILL" she said, eagerly,
ignorant of the stab in every word,
"let us forget to-day"
As if he could.
But he was true gentleman, a sm-
cere, unselfsh lover, and he led her On
to talk of other matters till the ashy