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For Woman’s Work.
OLIVE TREVOR’S FORTUNE.
BY LUCIE DAYTON PHILLIPS.
Part 111.
“ O, love,” she sighed, “ since life is sweet,
Since life is brief, why seek so long
• For gifts to lay before my feet ?
Thoudoestmy love a wrong.”
LENWOOD is one of the loveliest
( among the lovely suburbs in which
this southern city abounds. From al
most any point of view taken in its
busy, pulsating heart, the distance
G
looks spectral and gloomy; but this is only
result of the thick, woolly streams of the
smoke which the slender cloud-reaching
chimneys pour forth—a torpid, sombre
medium by day, a fervid gruesome glow
by night.
Beyond the complication of narrow,
wide and winding streets, the tall ladder
like business the gilded spire and
lofty dome of numerous churches, the
loud-hawked traffic, countless pedestrians
and vehicles, one might find in all direc
tions scenes that presented a gentle, idyllic
beauty and rural charm that readily ac
counted for the large number of beautiful,
suburban homes. There were wayside
streams which the southern spring fringed
with delicate flowers, velvety pastures on
which the cattle corraled at will, long
stretches of woodland where the live
oak grew in its beauty, picturesque
churches and chapels of the Gothic style,
trailed over by English ivy, and a small
colony of Queen Anne houses that
looked every inch homes.
But a little apart from these, much nearer
the city, in fact, stood a large mansion of
gray stone, less marked by elegance than
by quaintness, a daring innovation on the
characterless architecture of its day—
which was long ago—yet, even now, in
the midst of far grander and more tasteful
houses, maintaining a striking individuali
ty of its own. It was almost monastic in
style. The simple severity of its lines;
narrow windows, stained and pointed;
heavy doors, square and panelled, gave it
a certain “ last century ” air; and it was
this air that reminded Olive Trevor, of
the old hall in fair Devon, the birthplace
of her forefathers. Upon making inqui
ries she found the house unoccupied, and
to be leased; so she took it at once and
began to make it into a home.
Her first task, and it had been an easy
one with her full purse, was to engage a
housekeeper. In a lew days she had settled
in the sunny rooms of the rear addition,
a perfectly respectable,middle-aged couple,
who brought flawless recommendations
from one of the “ first families ” of the city.
It was only a week since Olive had
reached the city, a week spent in an ele
gant suite of rooms in the palace-like ho
tel known as “ The Gilbert.” She had felt
an insuperable shyness about going to “the
Mammoth;” indeed, had avoided even pass
ing by, lest she might be seen and recog
nized by some former acquaintance there.
She meant to ask certain carelessly-put
questions about Nora Curry, Gertie Mason
and others, perhaps; but her lips had
trembled at the thought of syllabling once
more those familiar names. She could not
do it—yet.
She was glad to be “back at home”—so
she told her lonely heart—and yet nothing
seemed stranger than to call it home when
she had time to think her words over, and
to analyze them. She was really as re
mote from the only home she had known,
when once established in the quaint stone
house in the suburbs, as if she were still
thousands of miles away. She seemed, too,
to be divided by a long lapse of years from
the life she had led in the shabby little
far-up back room in the red-brick tene
ment. What a strange undreamed-of life
was this in which she now found herself?
Why was it, after all, that she had come
back to America?
But the next month or two were given
to very ardent, if not very diligent labor.
Olive Trevor, rich, young and beautiful,
had failed to find perfect happiness abroad
—what had been the reason or difficulty,
she had failed—and so she began to prose
cute a second enterprise in its search. She
would buy this gray old mansion; she
would fill every room with beauty and
charming things; she would find new
friends to enjoy it with her, and—happi
ness, too; content, rest of heart.
She had many alternating moods of ex
altation and despair as the weeks of plan
ning, furnishing and “ settling down ”
went by; but Olive would not yield, now
that the goal was so near. Why, any
girl would be happy and proud in such a
beautiful home as hers I She had only a
few more days now, and then she would
really begin to enjoy life.
But in the meantime, the handsome
rooms, still solitary, were very lonely.
On this April morning, when the sun
shone only in fitful, inconstant fashion, and
an east wind gave a reminder of winter to
the early spring, she had been roving
through the house like a restless spirit,
pursued by some thought or memory—that
would not “ down at her bidding.” And to
her wistful ear the old house seemed haunt
ed to-day by echoes of dead and gone mu
sic. Songs sung by the happy-voiced;
or light, dancing foot-steps; laughter of
young girls; whispered vows that death or
fate had broken.
In spite of the spacious elegance of her
parlor and drawing-room, with their rare
antique and modern decoration, their cu
rios and bric-a-brac from many lands, she
felt them to be lonely. She would go up
to her own rooms where she had gratified
to the last degree, her own fanciful tastes.
The first of the three was the prettiest,
perhaps; light, graceful, not too elaborate,
and intensely womanly in every fine de
tail. There was an open wood-fire behind
the glowing brass fender, and in front a
large rug of snowy fur. A low, wide sofa,
luxurious with its rich robes and lazy,
silk-bound pillows, was placed on one side;
on the other, the deepest and softest of
Turkish chairs, upholstered in palest blue
brocade. There were square and oval mir
rors exquisitely draped to reflect the faint,
fair hues of summer clouds, and wonderful
pictures of scanes across the wide seas;
puffed and padded furniture in strange
costly stuffs of foreign ports; an old oak
cabinet of Italian vases, bronzes and china;
and besides these, various feminine devices
which go to make the lovely, not too serious,
harmonious “girl’s own room ” of to-day.
Such a room showed the finest contrast
possible to the one Olive remembered with
a pang that savored of regret; that deso
late, dingy little space she had once called
home. Ah, how happy she had fancied
herself in those old reveries in such a fair,
calm, gracious spot as this—and all her
very own! And yet, she was very dreary,
even here. She would go down and call
her companions.
At a word, two splendid grey-hounds
bounded to her side, gazing with their
great, pathetic eyes into hers. She stroked
their gaunt heads, caressed and talked to
them fondly, coaxingly. No doubt but
that they would have answered her in
words if they had possessed the power of
speech. But they could only tell their
love for their beautiful young mistress in
eloquent looks. And Olive Trevor felt this
silence, this lack of language. The soli
tude of her life oppressed her. She burst
into tears.
That very afternoon she met Garner
Craven, face to face.
He. started toward her, for one instant,
feeding his hungry dreams with the strange
sweetness of this reality. But he re
strained a passionate exclamation, and his
manner became the very perfection of
self-control.
“ You did not know that I had come
back?” she said,for all greeting, her heart
too full at this unexpected meeting for girl
ish doubts and tremors.
“Yes—l did. I have known it from
the first.”
His quiet words were a shock to this
proud girl, who knew her own heart so
well, and whose image dwelt there.
“Do you know why I came then, since
you know the rest ? ’
“For your own pleasure, Olive.”
How well he remembered her selfishness
in the old days at “The Mammoth 1” And
the dangerous admission she had let slip in
their last interview of her love—a love she
meant to bury out of sight, to trample un
der foot—doubtless he remembered that too!
She felt herself growing pale.
‘lit was my duty to go away as you
know,” she said in a low voice. Her heart
was sinking.
“Yes, I know. It was your duty, too,
perhaps, to break the strongest and oldest
bond between man and woman; to deny
to our love its natural end—marriage—
when we were both poor; to deny it again
when fortune had placed its barrier be
tween. Ah, there was something in this
last I I was far J»op§ willing to share my
WOMAN’S WORK.
life, in its poverty, with you,Olive, than to
have aught to do with yours after it had
been changed by riches, title, distinction.”
His dark, thin face had paled, too. He
spoke with a thrill of passionate feeling.
But the words brought no hope to the
proud girl who had mocked on that now
long ago evening, at the love she owned,
but laughed at.
A belief which she had cherished, wheth
er consciously or not, a belief which had
upheld her and had brought her back to
this place, forsook her utterly,as she listened
to this brief, formal speech. Garner Craven
had taken himself out of her life forever!
“ I have taken an old house on the edge
of Glenwood,” she began humbly and qui
etly, “ and am making it into a home, since
I so greatly prefer living in America;
and—here I would be glad you would
come to see me sometime. Will you not ?”
There was no moment in the past, how
ever deep and fierce his bewildered sense
of ill-treatment and injury had been before
it, when he was not moved to pity by a
little weariness in her tqne, or pallor on
her cheek. These had ever wrought dis
aster to his stern resolves, which Olive’s
capricious pride had often forced upon
him. He would have noticed such signs
in any one in whom he felt an interest, for
Garner Craven was a noble-hearted, great
souled man; but in this girl whom he
loved, they had only to be seen, to sweep
away every other feeling, save the one to
shield, to care for, to help to make hap
pier. His beautiful young love!
But now, looking straight in her face,
pallid, altered, her lips quivering, her eyes
darker yet with pain, he could say coldly:
“No, Olive! We did not make the tie
you felt it your duty to break so soon as
fortune and fate made your own life all
smooth sailing. But since you must do
with it as you would—as you have—so let
it remain 1 And, now, that it is broken,
don’t you see that it is far better that we
should remain apart? If your life had
been spoiled, Olive, if you had lost your
wealth, your beauty, everything, you
know, I could come and off«r to share
that ruin—to suffer, too, to help you to en
dure. But, as it is I can never come!”
“ Good-bye, then,” she said very gently,
turning away.
And so they parted once again; this
time—forevei ?
*****
“And if heaven, bending over,
Should turn black instead of blue,
If my own, my own true lover
Should prove false instead of true,
Do you think for the untrue one
I would cry!
No! I’d laugh, and get a new one!
That, would I!”
Not like poor Olive, these lines. She was
proud to her heart’s core, and suffered at
the mere possibility of the man she loved
turning away from her because he was
“ false, instead of true.” It was enough
that she had caused this parting—broken
the heaven-made bond. She only sang
the light inconstant little song out of the
hardness of a heart she was trying to
school into an outward patience and con
tent. The lips that caroled the gay
measures were pale and set.
Olive looked anything but happy these
bright spring days. She was sure that her
one lover would never come now. She
might just as well be across the Atlantic,
at Trevor Hall, for all she expected to see
of him. Yet, she went on living at the
old stone house, in the luxurious home
she had made for herself, because she knew
nothing better to do. It was a rather deso
late sort of life. The days were so long;
the nights, too, when she lay awake; for
she had discovered ere this that,
“Weariness can snore upon the flint, when idle
sloth
Finds the down pillows hard.”
Holiday-making, folding one’s hands,
comes hard at times to people who have
led busy lives, or carry heavy hearts.
Olive Trevor longed to fill these emptv
days with something—even work.
She was glad when the pastor of the
church near by, where she occasionally at
tended on Sundays, came to call one after
noon.
He was shown at once into the library,
where she happened to be reading; the
grey hounds crouched close at her feet.
The minister, a thin, tall man who
stooped somewhat, but whose face, pale,
masterful, had a look of strength and
power, noted with a sudden, deep-drawn
breath of pleasure the striking picture be
fore him—the girl’s rich beauty in the
foreground of the handsome, classic room,
the noble pair, with their fine, alert heads
“ on guard.”
“ They are superb fellows, these grey
hounds,” he said pleasantly, after some
cordial words of greeting; “ You are very
fond of them, too, I imagine.”
Olive smiled sadly.
“I am very fond of them, yes. One
must have companionship of some kind, if
only a dog’s. But grey hounds, even, are
not sufficient. At times, I wish very
much for some one to talk to, to talk to
me. lam o’ten lonely—very lonely.”
“Do you know what this house, which
you have made so beautiful, used to be—
at least for a few years? No? Well, I
remember the time when it was used as a
Girls’ Home, a sort of refuge for helpless,
penniless young girls, who had nowhere
else to go, no home of their own. A
wealthy philanthropist suggested the plan,
and the owner of this house intended it
should succeed. It was established, and
many poor young creatures found a quiet
home here—shop girls, factory girls, and
such as needed it; but those who planned
it died. There was trouble about the
deed; the whole enterprise lived but a
brief period, and was finally abandoned.”
The minister talked on kindly and pleas
antly, but Olive’s part of the conversation
was poorly sustained. She found herself
looking at him vacantly, too, scarcely tak
ing in the meaning of those gentle, timely
words of his.
The truth was, he had given her a new
thought, a thought that was running riot
in her heart as well as brain. The mo
ment he was gone she caught herself whis
pering, like the mad woman she had seen
in some asylum. But she laughed aloud,
a thing she had seldom done of late.
In a few moments she came down the
fine old staircase, dressed for the street.
“Yes, I will! I said I wouldn’t, but
that does not matter. lam going to ‘The
Mammoth!’ ”
And she went.
(TO BE CONTINUED.)
For Woman’s Work.
TRUTH.
The devil has been called the father of
lies; God may be termed the parent of
truth. Truth, therefore, is of divine ori
gin ; and, though it be crushed to earth, it
shall rise again, “for the eternal years of
God are hers.” Magna est veritas et
pi (Evalebit. The progress it makes is not
dissimilar to that of a balloon, which, when
it begins to ascend, moves heavily and
unsteadily. Little by little, it arises with
accumulating stability, until, having
cleared the earth, it sails proudly and
majestically onward. Both acquire
strength in progress.
It is of the utmost importance that
ehildren should be taught to speak the
truth. Thus, as Herodotus tells us, thought
the Persians thousands of years ago, and
the wisdom of the thought is apparent
to-day. To tell the truth is to make state
ments that accord exactly with that which
is. or has been, or shall be What would
be the value of history without the expres
sion ot truth? What necessity could there
be for courts of justice other than to dis
cover the truth ? Witnesses are sworn to
declare the truth, the wh Ue truth and
nothing but the truth, in order that justice
may be meted out to mankind. Truth is
the spring of every virtue; falsehood, the
source of every vice. The truthful man is
Nature’s own nobleman ; he has within his
soul an eternal spring of delight. Truth
is the atlas of society; the main-spring of
every joy; the mantle that covers cower
ing shame; the balance and weight that
equals the rich and the poor, the peasant
and the king. It is the measure by which
all things are to be judged.
Is is said that Aristides and Epaminon
das regarded truth so strictly as never to
have told a lie, even in jest. Atticus, too,
neither “ told a lie himself, nor could bear
it in others.” Truth, or silence, should be
the motto of every man ; and none of us
should ever subject ourselves to the impu
tation of the use of the “ necessary subter
fuges of society,”—the polite lie. It is an
erroneous idea, that of having, at times, to
tell a falsehood in order to be polite. Ho
mer makes Achilles say:
“ Who dares think one thing, and another tell,
My heart detests him as the gates of hell.”
It would be an undisguised blessing
could we all think as did the hero of the
Iliad. That society which has for its
foundation the practice of chicanery and
subterfuge is as rotten and carious as the
food of the vulture. The truthful man
never lacks a confidant. All mankind
respect and revere pure, unvarnished
truth ; despise and contemn duplicity and
artful falsehood.
Says a writer on the subject:
“ Every one can enter into the ani
mating, the delightful emotion with
which Petrarch must have received the
gratifying tribute of public applause,
when, on his appearing as a witness in a
cause, and approaching the tribunal to
take the accustomed oaths, he was informed
that such was the confidence of the court
in his veracity he would not be required to
take any oath, his word was sufficient.”
Let every mane mulate the example of the
Italian poet, and thereby acquire respect
and veneration among his fellows, and a
name of which his offspring may well be
proud I Lamar.
Atlanta, Ga.
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