The Douglas independent. [volume] (Roseburg, Or.) 187?-1885, 1879-10-11
THE INDEPENDENT,
HH POTspOUbRI.

as if they were young and the time was
June again.
It is too powerful, /" said Miss Efiing.
ham, waving her big peacock-feather fan.
Too powerful" said Mrs. Penn, put
ting away the silver curl that the neigh
boring fan brushed into her still soft
brown eyes. Not for me. Nothing is
SO pleasant to me as the pot-pourri, and
in the old jar, too. It is not the rose,
but it is the memory of the rose. 1t
brings back all my youth. And although
age is pleasant enough as it comes to me,
yet youth was so very sweet-so very
sweet, my dear" and the silver voice
paused, while slender hand went
searching through the purple gloom for
another old hand, and found 1.-THE hand
of the speakers husband. People think
it so sad to grow old, she said. But
every year has been to me like another
step on an upward path to paradise.
Ones wings are growing all the way.
And one has so much to remember, to
look back on when one pauses, to see in
new lights. Do you suppose that either
Of us would change places with Rosa
mond and Beltran there, who have life
before them?"
s.Not /, said the voice that responded.
4NOb biiftt yOu nWOultt lOb DG gnu W
live your seventy summers over again,
Paul?''
IT am sure of that now, at any rate,
said the husband. II have them. Moth
ing can take them away from us.
And we ask nothing more, she said,
9TH to be laid in the same grave when
the long night comes"
''And the endless morning." he muir
mured
s'And even that endless morning can
hardly be brighter than some of the
mornings of our youth--than the morn
ing when we first made the pot-pourri,
Paul. You remember that morning,
Panl?"
.Do YOU remember it, Aunt Persia?"
asked Rosamond
s4Shall l ever forget it?" she said, with
q low sweet laugh. why, when am
dead, remembrance of that morning will
bloom ont of my grave like fowerl
And yet it was much such morning as
any days last monthonly SO glorious,
so gilded, so full of sunshine! But what
gray and lowering, showering dawn it
had! If we had never had that little
quarrel, Paul. Ahl was so sad when
parted the curtains that daybreak I
thought / was done with life-and it was
plty--l SO young,
Here Rosamond pinched Beltran' s arm
$50 young. And might have been so
blessed, > said her Aunt Persia. 'tIf [
gave, that morning, just the swiftest
glance across that garden to Paul's win
dow, and saw that he sat there over his
book. he could not tell. And then |
dressed me; and thought Of some young
girl being dressed for her grave. And
then ] pinned up my white frock-a la
l0reuSe, you call it now, Rosamond-and
went down to the rose-garden to pick the
flowers with the dew on them for the pot
pourri that grandmamma had hidden me
never to forget in the time of roses.
1t was the time Of roses,
We plucked them as we went
sang Beltran, half under his breath.
s'And / plucked them till the basket
on my arm was heaped The rose-garden
was Just as it is to-day, on q terrace
higher than the rest of the garden. And
when ] turned about / saw Paul had
come down, and was walking in the pop
lar alley of his grandfather's garden,
headed, with his head fallen on his
breast. All, how beautiful he was! so
tall, so dark, so like "a fallen star. And
/ loved him so; and we had quarreled. L
had been miserable just forty-eight
hours. 1t seemed to me that / had never
been happy. I had lost my youth; was
old; had come into the shadow There
was another young girl, she said, after
moments pause, as if even the sorrows
of youth had their sweetness that it was
good now to remember, 'sthat Paul's
grandfather had chosen for him to
marry. I may speak about it now, /
suppose; she long since ceased to care;
she was, she is, my dearest friend, and
Paul has always loved her as a brother.
She has had many suitors since; with one
of them she plighted faith, and so she
kept her trust with death. But IL
thought that because | adored Paul, all
4 the world was at his feet; and when his
4 grandfather said this other was to be his
4 choice. with her great fortune at COM
mand, and remembered that had only
/ this old house and its belongings for my
4 own fortune, why, then I looked well
after my lover Yes, he was my lover.
I had felt sure of that, although he had
never said so, never exactly said so in
words; but we do not always need words.
And now, all at once, all in twinkling,
as if the sun had gone out at noon, he
was the lover of another girl. And I
could not have believed or dreamed that
the fortune would have made any differ
ence with Paul, or the grandfather's
wish, or heavens thunder-bolts even, be-
fore 1 saw it myself. / saw it myself.
saw him go and turn the music as she
played upon the harp, and bend over it
with the color on his cheek, and an an
CRY fire in his eye when the eye fell
askance on me- saw him lift her from
her saddle at the gate, just down the
street, and go in with her, and stay till,
an hour afterward, groom came and |
led the horses off. I saw him
lettering with her in the lane,
but they did not know saw, and
/ heard his miserable old grandfather
come hobbling up our steps, rubbing his
hard hands and talking to my father of
Pauls lucky hit. And SO knew that he |
had forsaken meme, the child that had
worshipped him from the cradle. And /
meant to die as soon as I could; but in |
the meantime, if it killed me itself to
hide it, they should never know cared.
Yet was not angry; in some way, some
strange way, it was Paul who was angry, |
who would not speak to me, would not |
glance at me, would not come near me, |
said sharp and bitter, almost insolent, |
things IN my presence, and seemed to |
try to hurt me all he could. 1t was not, |
In his manner, as if he had found some |
one still dearer to him than ], but as if /
he hated me, / thought, for Just existing |
now. All, well, it broke my heart And
ms L gathered those roses that morning / |
remembered that we had been going to
make grandmamma' pot-pourri togeth-
er. But gathered them with my back
turned to that garden across the high
box hedge, and the dew on those roses
was salt. John, the old house-servant,
the has been dead and gone this many
year., came Juggling out the big Chelsea
jar the same jar, Rosamond. 1t has
never Ind nick. ] wonder if you can
say as much for it after half q century,
John left it, with the spice boxes and the
tl1sh OF salt, on the marble step, to. be
handy for me, and began to shred the
roses into it. And as l scattered the
velvet petals, it swept over me in a surge
that Just SO the days of my life had
gone, and too was withered flower;
and as | knelt before the jar, all at once
my arms fell across it, and my head fell
between them, and 1 was crying such a
storm OF sobs that / wonder no one heard
me. But some one did hear. Directly
shadow fell between me and the sun
SHINE. and voice made my heart stand
sflll and my sobs cease.
What does it mean?' cried Paul. Il
demand to know. will have no more