The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-11-17
MRS. KNOLLYS.

Austria, and flows into Carinthia, and is
fourteen or seventeen miles long, as you
measure it from its birth in the snow-feld,
or from where it begins to move from the
higher SHOWS, and it's active course is marked
by the first wrinkle 1t flows in a straight
steady sweep, grand avenue, guarded by
giant mountains steep and wide a proto-
type, huge and undersigned, of the giants
stairway in the Venice palace. No known
| force can block its path; it would need a
cataclysm to reverse its progress What falls
upon it moves with it, what lies beneath it
moves with it-down to the polished surface
of the earth's frame, laid BARE no blade of
grass grows so slowly as it moves, no meteor
| OF the air is so irresistible. Its SubStant
| ice curls freely mods and
| breaks itself like water-breaks in waves
plastic like honey, crested lightly with
| frozen spray; it winds tenderly about the
rocky shore and the granite disintegrated
into crumbs, flows on with it. All this so
quietly that busy, oficious little man lived
score of thousand years before he noticed
! even that the glacier moved,
| Now, however, men have learned to con-
| gregate upon its shores, and admire Scien-
| fists stick slaves in the ground mot too near,
| lest the earth should move with it,, and ap-
praise the majesty of its motion; ladies, po-
| iitey mystified, give little screams of pleased
| surprise; young men, secretly exultant, pace
| the yard or two between the sticks, dis
| lance that takes the frozen stream year
to compass, and look out upon it half
| contemptuously. Then they cross it
| carefully, they have enough respect
| left for that-with their cunningly
nailed shoes and rope; an hour or two they
| daily with it, till at last being hungry and
| cold they walk to the inn for supper. At
| sumner thau toll St0raS of tbair
money to the guides who have protected
| them, and fall asleep after tea with weari-
| ness Meantime the darkness falls outside;
| but the white presence of the glacier breaks
the night, and strange shapes unseen of men
| dance in its ashen hollows. 1t is so old that
the realms of life and death conflict; change
is on the surface but Immortality broods in
| the deeper places. The moon rises and sinks;
the glacier moves silently, like a time piece
marking the centuries, growing the record
of its being on the world itself-a feature to
| be read and studied by far-off generations of
some other world, The glacier has light of
It's own, and CLEANS to stars above and the
| Great Glockner mountain filings his shadow
| of the planets in its face.
Mrs. Knollys was young English bride
| sunny haired, hopeful-eyed, with lips that
| parted to make you love them-parted be-
! fore they smiled and all the soft regions of
| her face broke into attendant dimples. And
| then, lest you should think it meant for you,
| she looked quickly up to Charles" as she
would then call him even to strangers, and
| Charles looked down to her. Charles was a
short foot taller with much the same hair
and eyes, thick hossy whiskers, broad shout
! ders, and bass voice. This was in the days
| before political economy cut Hymens wings
Charles, like Mary, had little money, but
great hopes; and he was clerk in a govern
ment office, with a friendly impression of
everybody and much trust in himself And
old Harry Colquhoun, his chief, had given
them six weeks to go to Switzerland and be
happy in, all in celebration of Charles
Knollys' majority and marriage to his
young wife. So thew had both forgotten
heaven for the nOnce, having a passabe
substitute; but the powers divine overlooked
them pleasantly and forgave it. And
even the phlegmatc driver of their Ems
panner looked back from the corner of his
eye at the schone Englanderin, and COM
pared her mentally with the far-famed
beauty of the Konigssee So they ratified on
in their curious conveyance, with the pole
in the middle and one horse out on one side,
and still found more beauty in each others
eyes than in the world about them. Although
Charles was only one and twenty, Mary
KnollyS was barely eighteen, and to her he
seemed godlike in his age as in all other
things Her life had been as simple as it
had been short She remembered being a
little girl, and the next thing that occurred
was Charles Knollys, and positively the next
LHllS Vi DOTEdIlC0 was DelDR MIS-. OndrleS
Knollys; so that old Mrs. Knollys, her
guardian aunt and his, had first called her
love of baby and then but a baby in love-
All this, of course, was five and forty years
ago for you know how old she was when she
went again to Switzerland last summer
three and sixty.
They first saw the great mountains from
the summit of the Schafberg. This is lit
tie height, three cornered between three
lakes-a natural Belvedere for central Eu-
rope. Mr.. and Mrs. Knollys were seated on
a couch of Alpine roses behind a rhododen-
dronbush, watching the sunset; but as Charles
was DESTROYS of kissing Mrs. Knollys, and
the rhododendron bush was not thick
enough, they were waiting for the sun to go
down. He was very slow in doing this, and
by way of consolation Knollys was keeping
his wife's hand hidden in the folds of her
dress. Undoubtedly modern lady would
have been talking of the scenery giving
word-color pictures of the view; but | am
afraid Mrs. Knollys had been looking at her
husband and talking with him of the cot
tage they had bought in a Surrey village,
not far from Box Hill, and thinking how the
little carvings and embroideries would look
there which they had bought abroad. And,
indeed, Mrs Charles secretly thought Box
Hill eminence far preferable to the Ven
ediger, and Charless face an infinitely more
interesting sight than any lake, however ex-
presSive, But the sun, looking askance at
them through the lower mist was not jeal-
Gus; all the same, he spread his glory lavishly
for them, and the bright little mirror of
lake twinkled cannily upward from below
Finally it grew dark; then there was less
talking. 1t was full night when they went
in, she was leaning on his arm and looking
up and the moonbeam on the snowy
shoulder of the Glockner, twenty leagues
away, came over straightaway from the
mountain to her face. Three days later
Charles Knollys, crossing with her the lower
portion of the Pasterzen glacier, slipped into
a crevasse and vanished utterly from the
earth.
All this you know. And I was also told
more of the young girl. bride and widow at
eighteen; how she sought to throw herself
tlo hl 10 cr1lE haxr cha rnf,snd 10,