The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1881-05-12

| ~AAA SnAo "uo W tuC 1Luuf
Annabel by her indignant father. And
now, indeed, was she unhappy.-for she
really loved this man, and knew herself
to have been really loved by him some
years before.
TOO old for him, indeed-too old for
him! God knows that my love for him
may be older than it was, but it is only
the stronger, the more enduring. Cruel,
cruel Jasper, to cast me off thus; and for
what-because I am twenty-nine. Surely
l am the same that have always been,
and lie reproaches me with the years
that have taken away none of my beauty.
He might as well lay to my charge the
ages that have passed before 1 was
born."
But so it was, in spite of all her grief.
1t was then as it is now, and as it always
has been and always shall be-man speaks
and woman abides by it. Tie Lady
Annabel pined and grieved. and wept in
secret; and talked, and laughed, and
tested about the elopement in public, and
for O while no one knew that hers was
heavily-ladened heart.
Tears do q great deal Of mischief in
the world. In the Lady Annabel's case
they did great deal. They took all the
luster from her bright eyes; they washed
away the color from her cheeks, and they
wore themselves channels in her smooth
skin, 50 that by her thirtieth birthday
people began to say: Lady Annabel is
very much faded, and 1.-The Lady Anna
bel is not quite so young as she was;"
and one little lady, the odious little lady,
as Lady Annabel had called her year
ago, was always heard to saw
1. L I. r
don't think so now. To be sure, poor
thing, she Is getting on pretty we'll"
This time the Lady Annabel entreated
her father to omit the usual merry-mak-
ing. She spent the day alone in her
| own room.
Thirty years old! How it distressed
me a year ago to think I was twenty
nine. l have no such feelings now.
Jasper was right when he said was too
old for him. How would my careworn,
sorrowful face look in company with his
blooming appearance? They talked of q
ball to night my heart shrunk
from such TIL 'ng! I ut a ball! No
this dimly-lighted room suite me better.
Jasper was right; but then, if he had
still loved me, would my youth and
beauty have gone SO soon? Perhaps
not, but they are now gone. And what
is left to me? A dull, joyless life of re-
greet.
But she was wrong-she was not quite
as old as she thought A few years
passed away. Her violent sorrow be-
came changed by degrees into melan-
cholly, and then into a gravity. They
rarely saw her laugh, but she was often
very cheerful. She had put away her
ornaments-her jewels it is true, but
her attire was always becoming and ele-
CANT. Her fathers dwelling continued
to be the resort of his numerous friends.
She mingled with them but seldom, and
smiled when the odious little lady, now
Mrs. Somebody. talked about old maids.
Meanwhile Jasper was never heard Of
his angry father refused to correspond
with him. He seemed to be forgotten,
and he was everywhere-but i'll one
place.
But grief will wear itself ont. After q
willis Annabel at first listened, and then
joined in the conversation of her fathers
guests, and found herself by degrees re-
turning the interest evinced for her by n
country gentleman of some property IN
the neigh borhood, about ten years Older
than herself. She was now thirty-tive.
The next thing was wedding ut the
hall, and no one seemed i'll higher spirits
than the bride herself, decked in the or
naments which had lain in their cases
for five years. Annabel was young
again.
Let us pass over five years of quiet
domestic happiness-for although her
feelings toward her husband were very
different from those called forth by her
first love, still she was attached to the
worthy man. *** Her black dress and
ugly cap, no less than her slow gate and
saddened air, show her to be a widow
Lonely and desolate since her bereave-
ment, she has again taken up her resi-
dence with her father, and inhabits the
same little room she formerly did. A
few months more and her fathers death
increased her seclusion. She has no rel
alive left upon earth, and earnestly and
bitterly does she pray that she may die
and leave this world of sorrows. She
receives no visitors, and rever appears
abroad-only now and then, late in the
afternoon, when the weather ia fine, her
tall. closely yelled figure may be seen
walking slowly round about the castle,
and the village children, coming home
from school, peep at her through the
hedge, and whisper:
at is the old lady taking her walk.
| We said visitors we're never admitted
/ xv~~> all xlax, mana not CO vunoh tho