Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1886-06-11
CHAPTER V.
AZ INTFRcEpTION.


The course of true love, if it never runs
smooth. very often runs slowly. No one can
say that Car or Sibyl Temple married for
love; we need not assert that they sold thom
selves. marriages such as theirs are made
every day, with the sanction of the church
and the praise of the world: but they are not
ideal marriages, not romantc-not the stuff
out of which love can he made. Sweet
Sophia Temple, the beauty and heroine of
this tale was not proposed to abruptly,
nor married SO hastily.
Young Brent was shy. To increase his shy
ness lie was passionately in love, and love
made thousand things delights to him which
a well-nforned modern man might do for
his lady once. but not twice. certainly For
instance. Young Brent would stroll about the
town ha,f morning waiting for Il chance
meeting; and if, after he had executed a
perfect walking match in slow time, he met
Sophia. and she gave him a smile, or cX-
changed a few words, he would return home
all agloN. and could hardly sit down to his
geology so hot his fame would burn Week
after week this went on. silly young fellow
when he might have been lathing in the full
tide Of court>hip, to be thus thuidly trcadng
the margin of the golden sea Yet perhaps
not so silly after all; since most people agree
that loves rreludes are so delicious that they
may well hc heightened: and some say that
the water is peucid near the shore and tur-
bid when We venture further out.
This win say in defense of him Sophia,
more than most women, was fitted for thi-
slow wur~hirnC kind of courtship. 1t often
struck me TIA, she was already what one
might imagine a good. warm-heartcd and
beautiful woman becoming in more ex-
allied stat" of existence. She had the gold Of
our nature, with very little of its dross. From
her, more than from any woman | ever
knew, or man either. did learn how comedy
human nature may be when tremendously
developed; how various qualities of mind and
soul, which We are apt to think conflicting,
such rs hunor and devotion, passion and
purity, NAV, when combined in proper pro
portions he each the complement Of the
other. Sophia changed from mood 10
mood with an ease, an absence of
constrai't which was the sign of a
nature reconciled to life in the best sense.
am ing 10 mention trivial occurrence,
but t. me it was significant. saw her
one morning greatly interested in an account
of a wedding robe, its color tri innings, and
the usual SequeS-iust as serio u,lv inter-
ested n the most drrSsy O. her sex could have
been. \ little while after, wien piece f
poetry was read aloud 10y somebody. in the
conn anyone of Tom Hoods, | think, lust
published, little fragment written in that
note ot mingled lumor and sadness which
was SO much his OWL saw Sophia's face
with a ripple of fun on it passing, with the
poem, into seriousness 1t seemed ms if the
soul Of the poet, in its double mood of laugh
Ter ana tears, were expressing itself in her
lovely features. 1t is a small matter to men
Notwithstanding perhaps-hut it Impress, Il
4 a.
arter. She had "A frank, spontaneous SYM
pathy with life all round and in every part,
such as | never met in any one beside herself
Hy reason Of this virtue she was always in
tcrested in what was going on, and the very
quality which subdued her individuality in
one v " made her character fresh and de-
liyhtful i'm another Sophia charmed bv her
constellation of charms, the grouping of viz
tues and graccs of body and mind, which
seemed to make her sympathetic with the
most opposite persons, AID at home in tn.
most various scenes.
Was there key to all this! or was she q
Phoenix in muslin, a paragon, admirable and
inexplcahIe: 1t is my conviction that Lci
mothers constant lectures ON the subject OF
women making themselves fascinarng-lec.
lures which fell on ears that interpreted
every word into new and higher language
IMAM the ollglhal-SaNe that bent 10 her dis
position which made her what she was Tn,
little morning room dispositions, with bail
CONS and lawns and dinner tables for texts
concerning dresses and marriages and car
rages and fortunes and smiles and posture,
and witty answers and complaisancy-th
all SOPHIA carried up to higher level of idea
and aspiration. She resolved to charm otheri
with happiness and goodness in view, moi
mere society cOnuucStS Mrs Barbara Tenn
pies projections were delivered in the spiri
OF Lord Chesterfield, low ana selfish
under a thin disguise of good hunor
Sophia, by the instinct Of loib
nature, resolved to use the mean, hcl
mother recommended, but with dit
fHrent end ip view Aud here was the pleas