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Speak Gently.
Speak not harshly—
Mach of care
Every human
Heart must bear;
Enough of shadows
Sadly play
Around the very
, Sunniest way—
Enough of sorrows
Darkly lie
Veiled within
The merriest eye.
By thy childhood’s
Gushing tears—
By thy griefs
/Of after yens—
By the angnlsh
Thou dost know,
Add not to
Another's woe.
Speak not harshly
Much of sin
i Dwelleth every
Heart within;
In its closely
Covered cells
Many a wayward
Passion dwells.
By the many
, Hours misspent—
By the gifts
To error lent—
By the wrong
Thou didst not shnn-
By the good
Tho ‘
Thou hast not done,
With a lenient
Spirit scan
The weakness of
Thy brother man.
The Reproof.
Whisper it softly,
When nobody’s near;
Let not those accents
Fall harsh on the ear.
She i, a blossom
1 Too tender and frail
For the keen blast—
The pitiless gale.
4§
* Whisper it gently,
’T will cost thee no pain;
*r\*Ge •atle words rarely
Are spoken in vain;
Threats and rcpaoaches
fc The stubhoru may move
jpoble tt e conquest
ided by love.
, w'mspei’ It kindly?*
•Twilit
pay thee to know
Penitent tear dropB
Down her cheeks flow,
Has she from virtue
Wandered aBtrayf
Guide her feet gently,
Kough Is the way.
She has no parent.
None of her kin;
Lead her from error,
• Keep her from sin.
Does she lean on thee?
Cherish the trust;
God to the merciful
Ever is just,
would honld his
ears whin a lady’s
swate voice is a talk
in’ fominst him.
“Well, my boy, I
want you to follow
her—at a safe dis
tance, you know—
and tell me where
she goes and what
ever happens. Do
you understand ? ”
“ Sure, and ye
may turn me into a
ghostiss if I don’t
Xow, sir? ”
“Now,” answered
the Professor; and
Dennis needed no
second bidding.
As Kathleen man
aged to elude the
observation of the
few who were vis
ible at that hour
on the grounds, and
finally to esca pe
altogether, and,
once out in the open
country road, to
breathe freely again
a tall figure, in a
scarlet and black
livery, moved slow
ly in her direction,
occasionally whist
ling softly some old
Irish air.
At that moment,'
from the shadow of
a large tree, glided,
the slender form o
the woman in blac’ J
With a 8uspici" ia _
glance towards t.; Q
Irishman, she mov-.
ed hastily forward
and followed Kath
leen more closely.
W h a t d i d it all
mean ?
Unaware Of tbestf- 1
strange proceed
ings, Kathleen mov
ed slowly along^her
head bent, h$y
mi*id gijreh up
3 -ho-u g h t s
A Scene that explains itself.
[For The Sunny South..]
THE MUIRSDALE ROMANCE;
-OR,-
A WOMAN’S HATE
BY MRS. E. BURK COLLINS.
CHAPTER X.
THE VIPEB S STINQ.
For a woman's malice is deeper and darker than Tar
tarean darkness. There is nothing too cruel, no shaft loo
barbed, for her hand to speed. In secret—and unsuspect
ed—she will sting like a viper.
Kathleen Trevalyn sat alone in her chamber,
in a white Watteau wrapper, with her long
brown hair falling loosely over her shoulders.
Her head rested on her hand, and her face, pale
and sad, was turned towards the blue sky and
the snowy clouds which floated past her
window.
She had not seen Roy Wardleigh since that
night, and Cora Vavasour had not yet made her
appearance; she was quite ill, Mrs. Dorsey had
explained. The gossip and surprise which had
filled the hotel the day after the strange appari
tion in Professor Midnight's room, had begun
to die away, and gradually disappear. All re
membered that, during the day, Mrs. Vavasour
had complained of a severe headache, and so
no one wondered at the shock which her nerves
had received, at sight of the strange and won
derful picture.
And to-day, sitting there alone, Kathleen TrC-
valyn’s thoughts were of that strange and start
ling manifestation. Something in that weird,
supernatural picture affected her strangely; a
terrible memory seemed to touch her and follow
her and haunt her. She could not put it away;
neither could she explain or understand it.
There was a feeling of kinship with that picture;
a mysterious affinity, a wild impression that it
was somehow connected with her own life. She
bowed her bead upon her clasped bands and
gave way to the strange fancies that surged tu
multuously through her brain.
A hand touched her shoulder. She glanced
np; her annt stood before her.
“Come, Kate,” she cried, adjusting her lace
breakfast cap, in the long mirror as she spoke;
“all that is well enough for a sentimental school
girl, but, remember you have your fortune to
make. Your destiny is in your own hands now;
what do you think ? Le Grande has spoken to
me this morning; he—well, in short, Kathleen,”
with a laugh intended to be facetious, “ he’s
your future husband !”
“What ?”
Kathleen Trevalyn sprang to her feet, fully
aroused now.
“ What did you say, aunt Marie?”
“I said, that I’ve as good as accepted Le
Grande for you !”
“ You cannot mean it!” Kathleen's voice was
low, but terribly in earnest. “You surely can
not have sold me in that heartless way, aunt
“ Sold ! Ha ! ha ! That’s pretty good, now."
She paused a moment, and her face wore an
ominous look. Then she walked straight np to
her niece and laying one hand firmly on her
shoulder looked into her white face,with eyes of
fiendish malice.
“Kathleen Trevalyn,” said she at last, in a
voice that cut like a knife, “ you proud, friend
less beggar, you are going to do just as I tell
you, you shall not resist; I will kill you first!”
The girl drew her slender form up, proudly.
“You forget yourself, aunt Marie. Friendless
and a beggar, I may be; but my own mistress
still. Let me tell you now, decidedly, I shall
never marry Mr. Le Grande.”
“And I swear that you shall, girl; do you
mean to drive me mad?”
She paced angrily up and down the room; her
mauve morning robe trailing after her; her white
hands clenched together, until the diamonds on
her fingers cut into the delicate flesh—a very
unlovely picture of rage and fury.
She paused again before her niece. There
was a triumphant gleam in her steely eyes, now,
and a look abort her face that indicated her
steady resolve, her unchangeable firmness, her
conviction that the battle was half won.
“ Kathleen,” she said, fixing her treacherous
gray eyes full upon the face of the girl, watching
aer shrink, with the keenest agony of soul, from
the tortures which she was about to inflict.
“You are not your own mistress; until you are
twenty-one, the law gives you to me, your legal
guardian. Your father married some penniless
adventuress abroad, willed her his property and
then died. He was a fool, and it was time for
him to die; and there are too many like him in
the world. Now, do you imagine that I am
going to stand quietly by and see you follow
your family propensity, and make a Don Quix
ote of yourself? If you do, you are mistaken.
Be sensible, Kathleen; accept Le Grande; he is
very wealthy and loves you devotedly.”
The girl’s red lip curled scornfully.
“ To be sure,” continued her tormentor, “he
may not be the most intellectual man in the
country, but nonsense ! What do you desire,
except the means to live luxuriously and inde
pendently? All this can be gained by this
marriage.”
Why should I marry at all, annt Marie?”
broke in Kath’.een, impetuously; “let me go
away into the country somewhere, and teach
school, and ”
“ Stop, Kathleen. Once for all, will you
marry Le Grande ?”
“ Once for all, I answer you, aunt Marie, I
will not!”
“Very well; sit here, then, in your room;
shun all other society—as you have done lately—
and let the world at large into the secret that
you are moping and pining for Roy Wardleigh,
a man who does not deign to notice you.”
“ Great heavens!”
The girl sprang to her feet like an outraged
empress and moved fiercely towards her aston
ished relative. There was a wild look in her
brown eyes; her face was absolutely pallid; her
breath came in quick, fierce gasps; she panted,
like some hunted creature at bay.
“Aunt Marie !’’
The voice, with its strange, drawn, unnatural
tension, was dreadful to hear. You felt that
there was bnt a step between her and madness.
“Aunt Marie! What do you mean?”
“Just what I say,” replied her annt, when she
had recovered her composure. “ The fact has
been plain to me, for some time, and people
already have began to remark it.”
She knew just what weapons to use, and she
used them, unsparingly. She knew that, to a
sensitive woman, there is nothing in the world
so appalling as the conviction that she has be
come a target for the invidious insinuations of
malicious gossips.
With unerring aim she drove the shaft home.
It is this slow torture that kills so many of us
women. How much more merciful would be
one sharp, sure stroke of the shining blade that
cuts off life, forever. Oh ! these pin-pricks,
that stab us through and through, and leave no
outward sign ! With smiling faces we cover up
the wounds; only our ears hear ever the drip,
drip of the lifeblood; and alone, in the solitude
of our chambers, we ean view the ruin made by
a cruel world. Talk of the Spartan boy and his
immortal heroism. His gnawed vitals are but
types of the endurance of many and many a
woman, who moves about with a face wreathed
with smiles, and the worm of despair at her
heart.
Kathleen stood for a moment, gazing into
those pitiless eyes. Some power seemed to urge
her on, to the step she was about to take. Some
thing clutched at her heart, like the last throes
of the death struggle, and she was firm and
proud once more. She laid her hand upon her
aunt’s.
“ I will tell Mr. Le Grande,” she said, with a
voice that was low and steady, and eyes that saw
afar off, her own happiness forever dead and
buried—and yet contrived to raise themselves,
unflinchingly! to the face before her—“tell him
that ” There was a slight pause; some
thing swelled and choked in her throat; but she
thought of Roy Warleigh, crushed back her emo
tion and continued:
“ I accept his offer of marriage.”
There! it was done now; the clods had fallen;
the grave was closed—there was no looking back.
“ That is right. I knew you would act sen
sibly. ”
Her aunt stooped and kissed the girl’s white
forehead. She shrank from the caress.
Then, the kind and tender relative—her work
being done—trailed her long robes out of the
pretty room, and as the door closed behind her
Kathleen fell to the floor, in a death-like swoon.
She had staked her all, her happiness here
and hereafter on one cast of the die—at d had
lost.
CHAPTER XI.
no. 593.
Bat these figures—yet, an open sesame to a world of
misery.
The afternoon sun streamed in at the open
window, where Kathleen was lying; its warm
rays touched her white face and aroused her at
• last. Slowly she arose to her feet and pressed
her hands to her forehead. What had hap
pened ? For a moment, she could not recall it
all; then the dreary truth crept and crawled
into her remembrance, and she shuddered vio
lently. She belonged to herself no longer. The
future, which looked to her like a vast dry and
arid desert, cut off all connection with the past.
She was Le Grande’s property now—bought
with a price.
Approaching the mirror, she glanced in at
her own image.
“I am very young,” shemoaned at last, “and
it may be years before I die. Oh, my God !
How can I bear the burden all that weary time!”
She gazed upon the pale face reflected there,
and as she gazed, the pride of her nature—that
pride which is a woman’s bulwark—the “strong
tower into which she may continually resort”—
filled her heart.
“ I shall never betray myself,” she whispered
bravely.
She closed her eyes, and a long silence filled
the room. At last she raised her head wearily.
“I will go out for a walk,” she said aloud;
“if I can steal away unnoticed. That may re
fresh me and bring back the color to my
cheeks.”
She turned away to prepare for her walk-
turned too soon to perceive beneath her win
dow, upon the balcony which ran along one side
of the hotel, a slender figure which crouched
there, robed in black—a white, wicked face,
greenish gray eyes, and a smiling, sensual
mouth. The head was raised like that of a ser
pent preparing to spring, and the green eyes
peered into the room. There was a gleam of
triumph in the wicked face, and then the figure
glided away softly and unperceived.
An hour later, Kathleen, in a white walking
dress and a thick vail, stole quietly out of her
room. As she passed Professor Midnight’s
apartments, she met the old man face to face.
“Why, my child ! ” said he kindly, recogniz
ing her in spite of her vail, “have you been
ill? We have not seen you before to-day.”
His words were kind, and his eyes, bent upon
her behind his glasses with a close scrutiny,
were not unpleasantly curious.
Kathleen acknowledged her indisposition,
said she was about to take a short walk, and
moved hastily on, glad to escape.
The Professor stood for a moment, his eyes
fixed upon her retreating figure.
“Needs watching,” he observed, senten-
tiously.
“Dennis! ”
“Prisint, sir,” cried that individual, and the
coachman appeared in the doorway of the Pro
fessor’s room.
“Any orders for me, yer Honor? Sure, since
I got back from the city yisterday, I feel clane
gone intirely for somethin’ to do, and not be
afther shuttin’ mesilf np in your rooms all the
time.”
“Well, Dennis, I wish you to remember your
promise to me, and keep yourself safe from
prying eyes. Did you hear a lady speaking
with me just now ? ”
“ Faith, I did. It is not Dennis McCarthy
■
sejreary futur. As She-
‘strolled along the
beach, the water, bo
shining, so entic
ing, fascinated her.
Something seemed
to whisper in her
ear, “ Why not end
it all now? One
plunge, and all
would be over.”
Bnt, as in a vision,
there appeared before her eyes the haughty
face of Roy Wardleigh—cold, sneering. She
turnedjaway. What! die, and leave the world a
right to say, with the covert smiles and Bhrugs
of the shoulders which society, in its own cons
cious innocence, so well knows how to bestow,
that she had died for his sake !
Never ! Better a thousand agonies, the tor-
tues of the rack—aye, even this marriage, this
hateful, hideous marriage, which her very soul
abhorred—than the pity and contempt of the
bitter world of society. No ! She would cling
fast to her promise—her marriage with this
pretty little fashion plate, with no soul above
the last new scandal or the tie of his cravat.
She was not the first woman who had sacrificed
herself on the altar of her pride and fear of the
world’s stings. She knew it was but a rope of
sand to which she clung though; and when it
had vanished from her grasp, she must go down,
down.
Something pulling at her dress aroused her
from her bitter musings. A ragged boy stood
at her side holding a letter in one dirty little
hand. With some surprise, she took it, and,
turning to ask him whence he came, found that
he had vanished. She scanned the superscrip
tion; it was addressed to her. She tore it quick
ly open; a card dropped out and lay, white and
innocent, as though it did not hold a life in its
keeping, upon the sand at her feet. She glanced
over the letter. A terrible look came into her
eyes; they dilated wildly, her lips trembled as
with a cry of agony, and she shut her teeth upon
it until the blood run through; she reeled, and
would have fallen. Ah! God! it was horrible!
She thought that she had endured the sharpest
pangs that Fate could inflict, but this—this was
unutterably terrible.
The letter was written in a wonan’s hand—
trembling, as through weakness—and it said:
Miss Tbevalyn,—I write you these lines from
my death bed. I know of you, and also— ask
me not how—that you respect Roy Wardleigh
above all other men. I 3ant you to know <*fie
truth—the solemn, awful truth. I am 1> 48 : c-
tim, and, dying here in the hospital, I r “P®- a
child—his child—to the tender mercies less oie
. world. 'e 8L
Kathleen Trevalyn, will you take charge of
this child? I appeal to you as one woman
should to another. I do not ask yon to adopt
it, for the world (dear, kind, tender world!)
■ would cavil at it, even were you willing to ac
cept the responsibility. I only ask you to as
sume its guardianship; to visit it occasionally
at the Foundling Hospital, where it will be
placed when I am gone; and see that it has
proper care for the next year or two, when, if
it lives (and I hope it will not), it will find a
home with some charitable people.
Trusting to your goodness (strange that I
should trust any living creature!), I enclose to
I
you the card which will secure you admission
i to the child at the Foundling Hospital. >'«
_ He is
known only as No. 523, but his name is Roy—
Roy Wardleigh. For God’s sake, heed my ap
peal ! Do the act of charity which I entreat
you to do, and keep my secret safe, if you would '
have the blessing of an ontcast, miserable wo-(
