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Read Ebook: The Girl's Own Paper Vol. XX No. 1030 September 23 1899 by Various
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Ebook has 383 lines and 25719 words, and 8 pages
SOLITUDE.
BY W. T. SAWARD.
The wind is singing a lonely song, Down in the forest deep! And I watch and watch the whole day long, Till the evening shadows creep. O flowers of the dying autumn day, How can you bloom when my love's away!
The golden grain of the harvest falls Under the sickle's breath; And along the wood a spirit calls, Telling there is no death! For be it autumn, or be it spring, Some flowers will bloom, and some birds will sing!
The night falls dark o'er the Fatherland, Down to the stretching sea! O Star of Hope! with your silver wand, Guide him to home and me! That the morning may find us hand in hand In the light of the well-loved Fatherland.
THE HOUSE WITH THE VERANDAH.
DESIRE FULFILLED.
The great joy grew more credible when all its story was told.
He had been with them some months when some of the party secured a half-broken empty open boat, which seemed to have been washed off from a passing schooner. This they patched up, and then they began to think whether some of them might not make one last dash for the release of themselves and the rest. The "castaway" was quite ready to take to the sea again; he did not seem to know fear, or he believed he held a charmed life. He was an expert seaman, and of really powerful physique. Another must go with him, and another only. The captain's arm being still disabled, the man selected as fittest for the expedition was the first mate. Despite all dangers their wild voyage was safely accomplished; a civilised port was reached, and a little steamer was at once despatched to the island to bring off the rest of the shipwrecked party. The ship owners had determined not to be premature in giving this good news. They had waited till every report was verified. Now, any hour might bring telegrams from Captain Grant and Charlie that they were safe on American soil, and hastening across the continent to take their Atlantic passage home.
Of course there was wild and glad excitement in the little house with the verandah. But Lucy's own joy was still and solemn. The others thought her very strong and calm. But she knew that she often asked herself whether she were waking or dreaming? She knew that she realised anew the distance and the dangers between herself and her beloved. After the glad telegram duly arrived and she knew the very name of the Atlantic liner on which Charlie was speeding towards her, a clouded sky or a rising wind would suffice to make her tremble! Ah, she had learned
"to love as the angels may With the breadth of Heaven between,"
and the next lesson of her life was to be the bringing-down of that mountain-top vision of serenity and security, and the possessing of it still among the mists and twists of the level lands. She had learned that love is eternal, that love is safe when out of sight--now she had to learn that time is only a part of Eternity, and that what is safe out of our reach, cannot be in danger while it is within it.
She thought often in those days of Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus. They, too, like her, had been through the bitterness of death. Was it henceforth abolished for them, so that they could say, "O grave, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?" Or did the impression wear off their souls, so that they had to live through all their grief again?
She went on, wondering. When we are told that in the mysterious future there "is to be no more sea," we feel that the language is only used as a powerful image, to show us that there shall be no more danger, no more parting. But after all, what are danger and parting, but for their fear and pain? Is it not really those that "shall be no more"? It seemed to Lucy that haply in the highest ministries of life's immortal service the paths of those who would be "about their Father's business" must still sometimes swerve from one another. If "no more sea" was a symbol of no more danger, and no more parting, did not that in turn mean an abiding sense that all is secure, a present consciousness that all parting involves joyful reunion? Then if our souls, still clad in mortal weakness, can but attain to this "perfect love which casts out fear," should we not be in Heaven's peace already?
Lucy resolved to go to Liverpool to meet the steamer which had Charlie on board. She resolved to go alone. For the first time since his father went away she would leave Hugh, assured now that he was surrounded by wise kindness. She longed for absolute silence and solitude on her journey to this reunion, well nigh as sacred and solemn as those generally guarded by the secrecy of death.
She preferred to go without any "seeing off." Those in her home, those who loved her best, probed her feeling on this head, and yielded to it. They parted from her on her own threshold.
"We will come to meet you both when you return," they said.
Husband and wife met. It was in a crowd of strangers, and nobody there took particular notice of the brown, lean, sinewy man, who clasped a silvery-haired young woman in his arms. Then they held each other apart for one moment, and gazed at each other, noting all that was gone--all that was changed, and all--ay, all!--that remained for ever!
As for the conversation--the questions, the answers, the narrations--that interrupted the rapt silences of this single day reserved for themselves only, what was it but simply the story which has been already told?
"They will be all at home to receive us," Lucy said, as, her hand clasped in her husband's, she told of the loyal friendships which had closed around her terrible waiting-time. "They are all still there, just as they have been. The house may be small for us all, yet I felt sure this would be your wish."
"UPS AND DOWNS."
A TRUE STORY OF NEW YORK LIFE.
BY N. O. LORIMER.
When the hard frost had broken, and the streets were full of slush and melting snow, Ada had to spend her five cents going in the Fifth Avenue stage-coach to and from her business, for, even with rubbers on, she had got her feet so wet and her skirts so destroyed that she found that it was in the end cheaper to drive than to walk. The children, too, had found it necessary to drive to school. Marjory had been very troublesome of late; she had been grumbling and repining at her restricted life, saying that she would rather make friends with the girls whom Ada considered vulgar and beneath her, than have such a dull, cheerless time. Ada had noticed that her eccentric old man had not been in the stage-coach for some time past, and she wondered what had become of him. She was sitting waiting for the boarding-house dinner-bell to ring , when the fat lady, who took such an inquisitive interest in her and her little sisters, came in.
"Well, Ada Nicoli," she said in her rough friendly way, "don't you wish you were the young lady."
"What young lady?" said Ada.
"Read it," she said. "It's the maddest thing you ever heard. The crazy old man whom you've often seen in the Fifth Avenue stage-coach, and who ate his bit of bread and cheese every day on the public seat in Madison Square, and looked as poor as any tramp, died a week ago."
"Oh," said Ada regretfully; "is he dead?"
She had grown to look upon him as one of her friends in the big cruel city, and now he had gone too.
"Yes, he's dead," the fat woman said emphatically; "and he's left a mighty pile of dollars behind him. He used to stint himself of house-fuel, and go to bed whenever he got home from business on a winter's day to save light, and wore clothes a coloured man wouldn't give to his father. What's the use of saving like that if you're going to leave all your fortune to a total stranger."
"Poor old man," the girl said; "he was really rather mad, but somehow I liked him; he seemed to belong more to the last century than to this."
"Well, it appears he's left every dollar he's got to some girl that he thought deserved some money, a milliner's girl, the papers say, who once saved his life in a snowstorm or something like that."
Ada read the long and highly-dramatic account of the old man's curious will.
"Yes, I wish I were the girl," she said; "but I fear there's no fairy prince in disguise watching my poor trivial round and common task. But just fancy, a girl earning her own living suddenly to find herself an heiress!"
The boarding-house bell sounded, and the hungry children came bounding down to dinner.
"Ada," whispered Marjory at table, "a man came to see you this morning, and I said you were out. He asked me a lot of questions, and I answered before I remembered that perhaps you would rather I didn't."
"What sort of questions?" Ada said smiling, and hoping that at last they were going to receive news of their father.
"Where you worked, and how you went to work, and if we were your only sisters. He was quite a nice sort of man."
"A gentleman, I think," Sadie said with a great air of worldly wisdom. "He said he would call again after dinner to-night."
"Did he not tell you what he wanted," Ada asked.
"No," Marjory said, "and it was only after he had gone that we found out how much we had told him, all about mother, and everything. Do you mind, Ada?"
"No," Ada replied; "but try in future, Marjory, to remember that you are getting too big a girl to talk to strange gentlemen in that confidential way."
After dinner that night the Irish servant toiled up to the top of the high house to tell Ada Nicoli that there was a strange gentleman waiting to see her down below.
"And sure and I can't think why you want to come up to this attic in the evenin', instead of joining with the company in the parlour. It would save my poor legs toiling up to tell you when your friends arrive."
"It's the first time anyone has come to see me, Bridget," Ada answered, "and I like having the children with me in the evening."
Ada might more truthfully have remarked that she did not wish her little sisters to enjoy the company of the young business men who frequented the boarding-house parlour in the evening.
When she entered the parlour, a keen-looking elderly man rose from his seat and bowed to her. "Have I the pleasure of addressing Miss Ada Nicoli?"
Ada bowed.
"I am Mr. Riggs." He looked round the room. "Have you any place where I could talk to you in private, ma'am?"
Ada grew nervous from fear of some bad news, but she had learnt to control her feelings before the curious eyes of the boarders.
"I have no private sitting-room," she said, "but perhaps I might take you into the bureau."
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