Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1881-02-11

| The rose fallB, and the muBicH sound Ia gone.
Dear voices cease, and clasp Of loving hands;
Alone we stand when the brief day is done,
Searching with saddened eyes earth's darkening
lands.
worthless as is the lightest fallen leaf
We seem yet constant as the night's nrst star
Kindles our deathless hope, and from our grief
Is born the trust no misery mar,
! That love shall lift us all despair above,
Shall conquer death-yea, love, and only Lowell
-Cetid Thdrter, IN ". J. Independent.
ONE VALENTINE, AND ANOTHER.
"If could gol" sighed Mrs Ecceston
her pretty pink cheek resting on her dimpled
hand, and the long dark lashes of her lus-
trous eyes resting ON the velvet cheek. "Its
such a shame" she murmured, unconscious
that she was talking aloud, "to be pretty
and bright, and know how to do things, and
talk French, and sing like a prima DONNA
and to be here, and never 10 have q chance ="
She turned in sudden alarm to see her hus-
band standing in the middle of the room.
| "Oh, well, she said, recovering herself with
laugh, then you know what fool am.
But never meant you should"
"And l never dreamed Of it before.
thought you had soul above buttons" he
said, gayly. why, if you want to go to
these things, Helen, go you shall"
"Well, no. Will, don't exactly want to
go. Only seeing them all off last night in
their splendor put me in mind OF it, and
must say / should like to see the scenes, and
l should like to say I'd been, when we go
back TO Lotion. Mrs. M'Blair is always 80
overpowering, and such an authority, with
the relics Of her life in Washington, and the
receptions and the officials and all that"
''Relics, indeed But you haven't any
'splendor, you know, except your eyes and
your color and"
"Oh, nonsense, now, VIII That's Just
because you heard me saying I was pretty.
Well" said Mrs. Eccleston, standing before
the glass and beginning to braid her hair, II
an pretty and l can't help seeing it. can l /?
And it's no vanity-I associate with the
neighbors Just the same" And then she
laughed her delightful laugh that showed all
the pearly teeth aglitter aud her husband
vowed in his soul that she should 90 wherever
she wished, il il cost a farm "a ball at the
Embassy" said Mrs Eccleston. MRS.
M'Blair never compassed that with all her
relics"
"And you shall, =" said her husband
"Oh, there now, indeed, I'm not serious.
haven't the faintest desire for it. One can
build castles without overt sin but to go in
to those castles, in our condition, would be a
real sin"
II any thing annoyed Mr.. Eccleston II was
when spoken to with such phrase as ''in our
condition." although his wife was quite ig-
norant of the fact. He was somewhat am-
bitious, and one form of his ambition was to
make a good appearance in the world, and il
vexed him, when the thought was brought
home, to think that others could do more for
their wives than he could do for his, while he
knew the years were passing and her beauty
would soon be dim. He was the chief clerk
Of a manufacturing house, to which he took
a railway ride of twenty miles every morn
-. a.,1 81 - -. IL
been 10 secure TO his wife, in case Of accident
to himself, the little place where he lived,
with its pretty lawns and gardens, piazzas
| and bay windows, and which was yet under
mortgage liable to foreclosure at the holders
will He had. come TO Washington lately with
a large claim of his firm on the Treasury
claim concerning which he knew more than
they did themselves, and of which, IL he won
il, he was TO have a handsome percentage
that would just about pay OF his heart eating
mortgage, and Of course he entered into the
business with all his powers. The firm, feel
ing his long faithfulness deserved some re-
ward, had told him to take his wife and to
stay at the best hotel st their expense, and
he had done so and the upshot of it all was
that day after day was dragging by, and il
was impossible to get a decision from the
treasury, and his wife's head was getting so
turned by the fneries and gayeties about her
that she was fairly giddy.
Sometimes Mrs. Eccleston really wished
she had not come TO Washington, the affairs
of the toilette gave her such worriment Her
navy blue cashmere that at home would have
answered for best all winter, here, she found,
was equal only to the simplest sort of morn
ing gown, and she had been obliged to wear
at dinner her one black silk that had already
been made over" and that was as fine an
evening dress as any body needed ut Lotion,
till her heart sank within her TO see that it
began to show symptoms of ''shinyness :"
and as for any thing more elaborate, that was
quite out of the question, she felt, for her
heart was set upon paying off that mortgage
and getting Brussels carpet in the parlor as
much as her husbands was.
Yet she would have been made Of sterner
stuff than most charming young women are
If, when she saw Mrs. Van Troll in the wait
ing-room, while her carriage was coming
round TO take her TO ths16ecretary's, adjusting
her cloak and letting out just one glimpse of
the cert feau silk covered with point-lace
and glistening with diamonds, like some love
ly sun-smitten cobweb strung with dew; or
the last bride sweeping up her pillows of
tulle and half drowning the young groom un-
der the foam of them as the carriage door
slammed or the old Spanish countess who
had apartments by herself in the hotel drop
ping her ermine mantle as she hurried across
the yestibule, till any one might see the mar
vel Of makeup" that she was in her white
satin and her emeralds the size of hazel-nuts,
and her rouge that counterfeited the very
bloom of youth-she would have been more
than human, we say, if the repeating vision
of all these damsels and dowagers had not
stirred a little envy in her soul, and made her
wish, like Cinderella, for a share Of all these
pleasures and a sight of all these scenes in
Nt,aks 40 HaaI .uL
the everyday affair.
At first it had been a novelty to Mrs. &c
cleston 10 observe the ladies in the drawing
room of the hotel after dinner, and TO admire
their dresses, TO which her own was mere
shadow, and at later hour it was like shAr-
ing in the dissipation 10 see the superb ap-
partitions in the one moment ere they gather
ed up their bright trains and fed into night
and darkness then at last it seemed a cruel
injustice on the part of fate that kept her
like the peri at the gate, outside this para
disc. And when a good old dowager In the
hotel, who had taken fancy to the spark
ling little body, and had been quite carried
away with her singing, had taken her out
calling with her one day in her carriage, had
asked her to receive some calls with herself
and had finally offered 10 procure cards for
her and her husband to the ball at this En-
bassy about which every one was raving, the
pretty creature had had struggle with her
self, not to resign the pleasure-that was in
evitable because she had nothing to wear
but to feel willing TO resign il.
81 don't know about our condition. >" said
her husband, in rather nettled reply TO her
last remark. "We are certainly getting along
very well, and one man has as many rights
as another in this country and dare say if
you were in the thick of this society, and
meeting these blanked Treasury tyrants, it
might materially hasten matters. I've no
doubt of it,"
I'll don't know"
''pm tolerably certain of getting the claim.
It's been passed ON favorably by two or three
of the subordinates, and only waits the whim