The weekly Floridian. [volume] (Tallahassee, Fla.) 1867-19??, 1888-01-05

sav ~. the last shot had told, aud b. ths r.
terlaced fpgers and rising to tn dnS1s-
sion in dead earnest. He often vuudesDel
At his own perpetual disposition ~ quaxiel
with Miss Grey, yet he told hin4ssaf fkat
she was never 70 charming - wh5d uhe.
was downright angry, and descended from
her transcendental hobby 70 tight on foot.
Slowly and somewhat disdainfully she re-
piled to his sally:
"Tf you choose to put 90 hippAnt con-
struction upon such subtle and beautiful
revelation Of woman's heart you ars of
course ut liberty to do SO, jus - you
would be at liberty to lithograph the Sis
tine Madonna, or parody Paradise LOST
but you must excuse your friends from
sharing your enjoyment of the productions.
For myself do not care to discuss the sub
ject further, for / will not hear i handled
like . second class Irritation. A man's
tOnch on the strings of sentiment il al
ways heavy and make one crings like
ohild's crash On the piano"
"On the contrary, 'the land ofslsxSse
employment hath the daintier sense and
a awoman's on the keys is too professional
but proceed, priestess, with the sacred
rites OF Interpretation, and will bow to
the east like a dervish till the service is
ended"
"To tell the truth, a somewhat more
reverential attitude of mind toward things
intellectual as we'll as moral would do
you no harm. Perhaps that was just the
lack which the heroine felt in her lover"
"Not she! She saw that he was grow.
ing thin, and she did not advise hollow
cheek nor faded eve, and altogether did
not like the prospect of nursing him
through long siege of consumption; so
she preferred to go into a decline her
SELF"
"Flippant again and too literal. His
pallor was the result of his emotion,
sicklied DER with the pale cast of
thought but seriously, think this was
one of those cases of subtle mind reading
which Tennyson 80 often dashed out be-
fore he was overtaken with his passion
for the peerage and footlights. He makes
the girls foresee that incompatibility of
mind and temperament which, generally
discovered after marriage, makes grist
for the divorce mills; and though she
feels the magnetic power of her lover and
is drawn to him by force stranger than
her own will, she appeals to him to save
her from herself, not to allow her to act
from this mistaken though inevitable im-
pulse against the judgment of her saner
hours. She says TO him in substance:
/ love you but you are not my ideal.
Our aims and purposes, our whole theo-
ries of life are at odds, and though we do
not feel the clashing now, or feel it only
as the stimulus of keener thoughts, we
should feel it more and more when we
were joined together in the unyielding
bonds of matrimony. Oxen that want to
browse in different corners of the meadow
feel the fret of the yoke"
Hilda Grey paused to take breath, and
bringing back her gaze from the vague
stretch of ocean, let it fall on her COM
panion. Startled at something she saw
rising in his eyes she suddenly realized
with sense Of dismay that she had
drifted out from the safe footing of alb
stract ideas, and that the undertow was
carrying her beyond her depth into sea
which she dreaded for herself, and had
still less mind to be followed into by her
comrade.
But it was too late Before she had
opened her lips he had plunged in: May
/ tell you what his answer would be ? He
would tell her that life vas question not
of browsing, but of blowing and that in
spite of the fretting of the yoke, the oxen
could do better work together than alone !;
that he would be accommodating enough
to browse in her corner in of hours; that
she was his ideal If he was not hers, and
perhaps (pardon the average mans vanity)
| Arox
poetry, fiction and transcendental phi
losophy rather than from real life, and that
he might do as we'll as another for lay
figure to be dressed up into hero by her
imagination; that though he had hither-
to wasted his valuable talents by keeping
them hidden IN a napkin"-
Interruption: "That is q waste, where
dolly would cover them"
scornto notice the impertinence. As
was saying, he would plead that though
he had idled away his opportunities, he
was not like Portis, 80 old but he might
learn if he had some motive of ambition
to lay hold upon, dear and practical, not
vague and illusory. In short, suppose
that l, the average man, should ask you,
the ideal woman, to marry me, what
would You say?"
The amused twinkle this time lay in the
girls eye. though she kept them de-
murely lowered as she answered. L never
reply to hypothetical offers."
"Well, then, for heavens sake, answer
. direct one! You have virtually re-
fused me dozen times in the last fort
night by choking me off when you saw I
wanted to speak. You have taken pains
TO mention as your ideals the men you
thought most unlike me. Yeu have dosed
me with Concord and surfeited me with
Boston. Now, TO crown oil, you try TO
persuade me that it is dishouorable in rue
to try to make you care for me. Yet hear
me you shall. 1love you, and I ask you,
and ask you now, once for al, will you
have me-"
No more dear Iowa for ct touch yield.
Ask no m0rei