A Modern Instance

mists, but at every season serious and beautiful, furrowed with hollow shadows, and taking the light on masses and stretches of iron-gray crag. The river swam through the

at on those northern fields. They waved with corn and oats to the feet of the mountains, and the potatoes covered a vast acreage with the lines of their intense, coarse green; t

and commonly very still. Then the landscape at noon had a stereoscopic glister under the high sun that burned in a heaven without a cloud, and at setting stained the sky and the white waste with freezing pink and violet. On such days the farmers and lumbermen came in to the village stores, and made a stiff and feeble stir about their doorways, and the school children ga

rd reach of the plain, was the main thoroughfare, and had its own impressiveness, with those square white houses which they build so large in Northern New England. They were all kept in scrupulous repair, though here and there the frost and thaw of many winters had heaved a fence out of plumb, and threatened the poise of the monumental urns of painted pine on the gate-posts. They had dark-green blinds, of a colo

th their work at the windows on either side of the way, hesitating whether to light their lamps, and drawing nearer and nearer to the dead-line of the outer cold for the latest glimmer of the day, the passage of this ill-timed vehicle was a vexation little short of grievous. Every movement on the street was precious to them, and, with all the keenness of their starved curiosity, these captives of the winter could not make out the people in the cutter. Afterward it was a mortification to them that they should not have thought at once of Bartley Hubbard and Marcia Gaylord. They had seen him go up toward Squire Gaylord's house half an hour before, and they now blamed themselves f

dismounted at the gate, and, as she jumped f

er the wood-shed," answered the young man, going

d aquiline; her eyes were dark, and her dusky hair flowed crinkling above her fine black brows, and vanished down the curve of a lovely neck. There was a peculiar charm in the form of her upper lip: it was exquisitely arched, and at the corners it projected a little over the lower lip, so that when she smiled it gave a piquant sweetness to her mouth, with a certain demure innocence that qualified the Roman pride of her profile. For the rest, her beauty was of the kind that coming years would only ripen and enrich; at thirty she would be even handsomer than at twenty, and be all the more southern in her type f

, in which the smouldering fire, revived by the opened draft, roared and snapped. It was midnight, as the sharp strokes of a wooden clock declared from the kitchen, and they were alone together, and all the other inmates of the house were asleep. The situation, scarcely conceivable to another civilization, is so common in ours, where youth commands its fate and

ands toward the stove, and he presently rose from the rocking-chair in which he sat, somewhat lower tha

d, with the ease of a man who is not

nd pulling the collar close about her throat. "I wonder you didn't p

d from the low rocking-chair into which he had su

, that sorrel will be the death of us. He says it's a bad color for

frightened when you're riding

at faith in y

s because he's of a certain color. If your father didn't believe in it

girl. "I don't think he likes to see

ation, he often said things that hurt; but with such a humorous glance from his softly shaded eyes that people felt in some sort flattered at being taken into the joke, even while they winced under it. The girl seemed to wince, as if, in spite of her familiarity with the fact, it wou

reatly interested by the subject, "You've got a sorrel-top in your office that's

h Morr

es

e's very eager to learn the business, and I guess

e must be going o

arelessly, but with perfect intelligenc

you admire

t he answered indifferently, "I'm a little too near that color myself. I hear tha

at the high-hung mezzotints and family photographs on the walls, while a flattered smile parted her lips, and ther

young man. "If I didn't have you here to free my min

rage it further by pretending to identify herself with it. "I don't see why you abuse Equity to me. I Ve never been

reat difference. You saw girls from other p

w they were so very diff

ldn't, either, if th

om him with her happy eyes. "Why, what does make me so di

pect me to tell y

on't believe it's any

that you deserve

un of me. How do I know but you make fun of me to other girls,

been sarcas

I wouldn't

ch. It gave her a still deeper sense of his intellectual command when he finally discriminated, and began to read out a poem with studied elocutionary effects. He read in a low

e who has carried on a train of thought quite different from that on which he seemed to be intent,-"Chicago is the place for me. I don't think I ca

?" the girl force

Should you write to me

tters very interesting. You wou

e me the Equity news; but they would if you left

nk that would in

st like going out

rite yet," said the girl, la

Equity till you do, then.

much like marrying a m

man." He waited for her to speak; but she had gone th

of man's life

's whole e

with his tree look, in the happy embarra

ured. "I don't know anyt

oman's I was

k I'm compete

him. That's the reason I've kept out of it altogether of late years. My advice is, don't fall in love: it takes too much time

d, slanting a look at him, which s

wrote to me I coul

ht to promise,

hat you wis

n't to let anything stand in the way of

le, wouldn't you? You would t

. I don't think I should have

a light heart, now. Good by."

you going

Or no, I can't go to-morrow. There's

s go to

ternoon. Stop! I have it! I want you to g

about that,"

ble. "What elegant stationery! May I use some of this elegant stationery? The letter is to a lady,-to open a correspond

etter not

de: Dear Marcia:" He wrote it down. "That looks well, and it reads well. It looks very natural, and it reads like poetry,-blank verse; there's no rhyme for it that I can remember. Dear Marcia: Will you go sleigh-riding with me to-morrow aft

better be 'truly,'

ch case made and provided." He wrote, "With unutterable dev

and made a feint of tearing it. He seized her hands. "M

t to tear up my letter, and pr

her wrists, on whose whiteness his clasp left red circles. She wrote a single word on the

and I will steady your trembling nerves, so that you can form the characters. Stop! At the slightest resistance on your part, I will call out and alarm the house; or I will-.

" she pr

rd. There, that will do.

te that. I w

Gaylord is not very legible, on account of a slight tremor in the writer's arm, resulting from a c

He spoke of himself; but in application of a lecture which they had lately heard, so that he seemed to be speaking of the lecture. It was on the formation of character, and he told of the processes by which he had formed his own character. They appeared very wonderful to her, and she marvelled at the ease with which he dismissed the frivolity of his recent mood, and was now all

her lips. They sat in silence; and he took in his the hand that she let hang over the side of her chair.

il. In a little while it will not reach it, and the flame will die out. That is the way the ambition to

seemed to her very beautiful; and h

ss in his flattery, filled her brain like wine. She moved dizzily as she took up the lamp to light him to the door. "I have tired you," he said, te

his head and kissed her.

or had closed upon him, she stooped and ki

looked sharply down into her uplifted face, and, as they stood confronted, their consanguinity came out in vivid resemblances and contrasts; his high, hawk-like profile was translated into the fine aquiline outline of hers; the harsh rings of black hair, now grizzled with age, which clustered tightly over his head, except where they had retreated from his deeply seamed and wrinkled forehead, were the crinkled flow above her smooth white brow;

er! Did we

I was coming down to read. But i

There's a good fire

he parlor door, and looked again at his daughter with a gl

rimly, "are you engag

her head droop and turn, till her eyes were wholly averted from him, and she did not speak. He closed the door behind him, and sh