Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

tfif FLOWERS COLLECTION VOL. V. J. H.&-WB. SEALS,} ATLANTA, GA., JULY 19, 1879. Terms in advance:} gS5.u, < cop® 3 §2- No. 2i0. ON PLACING A DAUGHTER AT SCHOOL. Good sir, I have just called this morning, My daughter to Diace in your charge;— She has a mind of the very first order, Though her body you see is not large. She has learned spelling, reading and writing, Though on these you may give a review, And let her take chance at odd times, sir, To brush up Geography, too. Let her give some care to her grammar. And Rhetoric let her learn well;— Also Botany, Chemistry, History, With a peep now and then at Vattell. Of course have her thorough in Latin, French. Spanish, Italian and Greek;— Tongues ancient I'd have her to read well, The modern, I’d have her to speak. Arithmeic, too, you must teach her. Algebra then let her learn. Geometry, Calculus, Fluxious, She must each take np in its turn. Instruct her to reckon.eclipses. And tiie transits of Planets compute. Let her have such skill in Logic Thatnonecan her reasoning confute: On the Ilarp I would have her be perfect, On the piano let ber excel;— And to sing and piay the guitar, too, And to dance let her also learn well. You must see that her manners are finished, Make her walk with Hebe-like grace. And in talk you must make her so charming That no one will think of tier face. In-truet her in cooking and sewing. Telegraphy be sure to impart. Learn ber patchwork, washing and brewing; Make her skilled in the printer’s art. She must paint and handle tliechise'; Learn all about Medicine, too. With something of Law and Divinity. While she reads Bacon and Shakespeare thro.’ All this full “course of Instruction,” In cardsyou to teach do profess;— I believe I neglected to mention. You promised to learn her to dress.^ N■ -,i j', Diiri'j ..>V. it’iuiu iie uear JeA'ei So bright I’ll not know its the same, But remember, if anything's lacking You alone must bearall the hlatne. BERTRAM’S LEGACY. BY VI Its. A. C. COCHRANE. Stately Lyndon Mansion, with its ivied walls, its noble pillars, its broad sweep of green lawn, and its fine old elms looked in the autumn sunlight, what it was—one of the proudest homes of the old English gentry. Three weeks ago it bad been thrown open for the first time in fifteen years. Its owner, Hon. Henrv Singleton had returned from a long residence in In dia, where he had filled the post of governor of one the provinces, after having been for several years a member of the English parliament. He had returned to his country and his old ancestral home, but he had returned to die, and to rest buside his wife whose re mains he had had disentombed and brought with him from India that they might rest in the burial place of his fathers. He brought with him too, the only remaining member of the family—the sole be ing who should bear his proud name wdien he was no more—his daughter, a slight, fair girl, pale with long watching on her invalid father, sensitive and shy through never having mixed with society, and grave beyond her years, through having been so long the companion only of her grave father, her view be>ng bounded by the walls of his sick room, her hopes rising or falling with the pulse that beat in his wasted temples. There was another reason for her gravity. Though not yet nineteen, India Singleton was a wife—a Wife in name and in heart—the wife of her father’s ward, the son of his dearest friend. During nine years of his life, from the time he was twelve until he had come of age, Bertram Gray had been an inmate of Mr. Singleton’s peaceful and beautiful home in India. He was looked upon as one of the household. He loved Mr. and Mrs. Sin gleton as his own parents and the bitterest tears of his life was shed, kneeling with his arms around lit tle India, by the bed where his adopted mother had breathed her last. India had been his constant com panion and playmate—the sharer of all his boyish delights and troubles, the enthusiastic listener and believer in all his plans for the future. She was a sweet-faced, but rather backward and delicate child of fourteen when the time came for Bertram to return to England and assume the possession and care of his property, that had hitherto been attend ed to by agents of Mr. Singleton’s. He would leave on the next steamer, with his tutor, the learned and excellent Professor who had attended to the greater part of his education. India was inconsolable, and pleaded to go with him. ’ ‘Not vet,’ said her father, and he drew them both to him, and spoke of a purpose that had formed it self in his mind during the last few days. Both Ber tram and India knew that they had been in a man ner betrothed from their cradles, and that it had been the last and most earnestly expressed wish of Bertram’s father that the contract -hould be con summated by marriage as soon as the two had reached a suitable age. Mr. Singleton, now thourht best, that the ceremony should take place before Bertram left for England. Of course the marriage would be one only in name, and wheu Bertram re I turned to India, there would be another ceremony ! to make this more binding, but. Mr. Singleton was anxious for the future of his young ward and thought that the vows that would bind Bertram to the gentle girl he seemed to loved so well, would I be a safeguard and a talisman to protect him in the ' midst of the temptations sure to beset a young man ' who was at once brilliant, social, rich and inexpe rienced in the ways of the world. " So the morning he was to say good-bye, while his horsee waited at the gate to bear him on the jour ney to the coast, the maririige form was gone through with, and Bertram clasped his child-bride in his arms and kissed her tearswet cheeks and quivering lips, a caress that was at once a token of nnion, and a parting, for in that kiss he murmured his good-bye. He reached England, and there among relatives and friends of his family, he entered a new life, full of fascination for one of his social nature. He was admired and courted, his society sought because of HIDDEN BY THE DOOR OF THE CARVED CABINET INDIA HEARD THE WORD-, THAT FELL LIKE WITHERING FROST ON HER HEART. his fine conversationa 1 powers, refined manners, and lengthy^ rent roll. Taken up with pleasure and business, he gave less and less thought to the friends in India and began to look upyi that marriage -yith the little , pale ■. Ji .aji ht.-it aiai...tie sentimental t'liiid s piay—an v * for which lie could not be held respon sible. His letters to India became shorter and more rare. At last India ceased to write at all, and only her father was Bertram’s correspondent. He began to hope that they would attach no importance to the youthful marriage; he contrasted his little pale, timid child-bride with the brilliant beauty and dashing style of Isabel Graham, who rode so fear lessly at fox hunts, waltzed so divinely and looked at him from under her black eye lashes as .-he sang •Darkeyed one, dark eyed one I languish for thee!’ Mattel's were at this pass when a letter from Mr. Singleton broke upon his delicious love-dreams like a knell. It contained information that he would take passage for Eugland on the next steamer. He had been very ill, and hoped, but hardly expected to recuperate in his native country. He wrote: ‘India,your childbride is now fully grown and is as noble and true hearted a girl as lives. I cannot tell you how dear she is to me. My sole anxiety is for her. I do not fear to die, but I want to leave her happy. As soon as we reach dear old Lyndon, we must have the ceremony that gave her to you made more solemn by another, and then I can die satis fied,knowing that my daughter’s happiness is in the hands of one who has always been as dear to me as a son.’ This letter threw Bertram into such perturbation that it nearly made him ill. To get rid of disagree able thoughts, he accepted an invitation from one of his friends to spend the shooting season with him at his country place in a part of the country quite distant from Lyndon. It was not the attraction of grouse and pheasants that drew him there however, but the fact that Is abel Graham was one of the invited guests at Heath Hall. He fully intended to face his duty and meet Mr. Singleton on his arrival in London as he was bound in common courtesy to do; but the fascina tion of Miss Graham’s society detained him against his conscience, and as time went by he found it more difficult to go. He had acted badly, his better feelings reproached him for it continually. He dreaded to meet the rebuke of Mr. Singleton and the tears and reproaches of India. He put off the evil day from time to time, until three weeks had gone by since he had seen in the Times the an nouncement of Mr. Singleton’s return to England. At last, one day came a telegram summoning him to the deathbed of Mr. Singleton. Stricken with remorse, he hastened to Lyndon, and threw him self on his knees beside the bed where his father’s friend—his kind protector and guardian lay in the amaciation of consumption. Overcome by the tender reproach in the sunken eyes and by the white agony in the face of the girl who hung over her father, he spoke no word of dissent when Mr. Singleton tlrew him down and whispered his re quest that the marriage be re-solomnized then by his bedside. India yielded a passive assent, though all her thoughts, seemed to belong to her father, and as all was ready the rites were performed at once-—Half an hour afterwards, Mr. Singleton breathed his last, and India, half fainting, was car ried to her room ■ It was the afternoon of the next day; the dead lay in sta: e in an upper room of the mansion, Ber tram wandered about t he silent house and grounds like a restless spirit. The reaction had come; the overwrought feeling of yesterday had subsided, and he said to himself that he had "been a fool to rivet the chains upon himself by consenting to let that ceremony take place. Goodbye now to hope, to happiness, to Isabel, he said, striding up and down the long colonnade his brow knit and his arms crossed tightly over his breast. A gentleman who had come unpercieved up the broad walk entered and approached him. He turn ed, saw who it was, and held out his hand, which the other shook warmly. He was a man past the first prime of life, with a grave good face—Gerald Stanford, a man of letters, who had won distinction but bad known much sorrow was Bertram's best friend. He had been drawn to Bertram by the young man’s frank, affectionate nature and his bright and quick intellect. The warm grasp of his friend's hand, the kindly sympathy of his eyes was more than Bertram could bear at that moment. He could no longer repress his feelings, and draw ing Stanford into the library, he sat down by him and burst out with a confession of the trouble that oppressed him. t His friend listened patiently, find ing it a difficult case and one in which it was im possible to give advice. He said at last; ‘It is a merciful thing that time brings inward as well as outward changes. We are apt to think our feelings now are fixed but find that in a little while, we change, and what seemed wholly unfortunate, appears in a far happier light—sometimes comes to be a blessing.’ . ‘ TITiftt blessing can this ever ' .the young man t”i >>ur - • ■' -* •’ '>n his friend's knee. Aly life is /’ -wred mf-ever. I have married a woman I do not atyij never'can love, even if there was not another woman whom I do love dearly and who loves me. The marriage was forced upon me by circumstances, I could not con trol. It is the death blow to my happiness, to my ambition.’ ‘And hq|v-About her happiness,’ said Stanford seftly. ‘An orphan, left desolate among strangers, in a strange country, the father she had nursed so tenderly dying and leaving her bound through his wish to a man who has shown indifference to her, at a time when mere courtesy would have demand ed the kindest attentions both to the sick father and the anxious daughter: 1 ’ ‘I know, I know! you cannot reproach me more than my own conscience does' I am msierable : come let us walk in the grounds; the close air stifles me.’ They went, and when the door was shut behind them, India, white as death crept out from a corner of the room where she had been hidden from sight by the carved cabinet she had opened a moment before the entrance of Bertram and his friend. She had gone to tlie library, knowing it to be unoc cupied, to try and find in the quaint old cabinet they had brought from India, the minature of her mother that her father held so sacred, and a duplicate of which she possessed. She meant to place it on bis breast, beneath his clasped hands, as he lay in his coffin that it might be buried with him. irhile she stood there, the door opened without warning, and the two meu entered. From her position, they could not see her, and as she was about to move forward, she heard Bertram speak of her and of his marriage in tones that stayed her steps and forced her to stand and listen to those wild ut terances of disappointment and despair that es caped the young man’s impulsive lips. last began to resent in feeling at least, the indiffen- ence thus meted out to him, when he claimed con fidence and deference. He himself he reasoned . had separated frtnn old association®, had pu* the ,1 :-.V <'■ ■ 4. ." • -..Y'iViii fie Vveu i.dvdt Ins luitlil, and showed a willingness to make duty his guide, and now she seemed not to appreciate his sacrifice. Yet he could not accuse her of being cold-natured. He had seen her devotion to her father, he noted her gentleness to the servants, her quiet household ways, her attention to her birds and flowers, ber kindness to the poor, her neat dainty taste; he saw and felt the force of these attractions and gradually came to admiring her, though still secretly deploring her want of style and accomplishments, for she gave no sign of any capacity for these. She had no heart foi them. And she was so quiet, so calmly indifferent that it exasperated him. How could he know that her heart had shut within itself like a sensitive plant. Irritation grew 7 upon him, and it was well perhaps that at this time he found that it was necessary for him to go to India to settle up finally Mr. Single- ton's business in that country. He had been left by Mr. Singleton sole executor of bis will, and heir of all his wealth, except the estate at Lyndon. The Indian property, left in the hands of careless agents needed sadly to be looked after. He made his ar rangements to be absent a year and left with only a touch of the hand and a simple 'goodbye’ from his bride. CHAPTER II. The day of the funeral arrived, the sad rites were to be performed at sunset; all visitors and attend ants had left the deatn-chamber, giving place to the daughter who would be alone with her dead. In her black robes and pale almost as the rigid face before her, India stood above the coffined form, looking for the last time upon the beloved face, from which the light had forever fled. Fall ing on her knees beside the body, she imprinted kisses upon the cold lips and a cry of bitter anguish escaped her. ‘No love, no friend ever more ! Oh, God ! be merciful and take me too.’ That cry went with thrilling power to Bertram’s ear as he stood in the bay window, hid by the deep curtains. He forgot self; memories of early days and of India, the sweet comforter and child-friend rushed upon him, and his heart went out to the stricken girl in tender compassion. He walked across the room to where she knelt, and laid his hand upon her bowed head. ‘India,’ he said softly, ‘from my soul I sympa thize with you; let me comfort you, child- lookup; have you forgotten me—Percy of the dear, old home ?’ She shrank from bis touch. ‘Do not come now,’ she said; ‘you are too late. He prayed for your coming, but he is gone now forever.’ ‘Forgive me, India, for the thoughtless wrong I have done to him and to you. I should have long since claimed you as my own, and here in the solemn presence of death, I register a vow to make such atonement for my sin as lies in my power.’ She did not answer, she only motioned him from her, and when he still lingered she said: ‘I asked to be alone.’ ‘I will go. but think of me as with you in heart, dear India,’ he said gently, as he bent and kissed her forehead and softly quitted the room. A month had elapsed since the funeral. India had kept her room persistently and had gently but coldly repelled Bertram’s attempts at consolation or tenderness. As in duty and honor bound, the young husband installed himself at Lyndon, but in solitary state, for the bride lived as seemingly unconscious of his ex istence as when oceans and a continent lay between them. It was truly a double house, and never was there nun within convent walls more isolated from the world than was India from her husband. In contrition for his past conduct as well as respect for her wishes and compassion for her grief, he ac cepted the situation, though he continued to try by unobtrusive attentions to lift the sorrow from her life. Thus weeks passed by, the lonely Bertram at CHAPTER III. Bertram returned to England without having notified any of his household of his movements. Lyndon was five miles from the railroad station and procuring a conveyance and fast horses, he was whirled rapidly along the level road leading to the villa. As he neared the elegant home bequeathed by Mark Singleton to his daughter, he turned his head as if to shut out the view before him. Often he had resolved to leave at once a place where he was so completely set aside, to renounce all claim to the fortune conferred upon him, to free forever the woman who thus persistently ignored his claim. A reluctance to afford food for scandal and per haps the dawning of another and nobler feeling had fought against pride and deterred him from carry ing out his purpose. Delivering the horses to the groom, the master proceeded on to the house, with firm, haughty step, the light of a proud resolve burning in his face. He vowed to himself to see India and give back her freedom, relinquish all claims to her wealth and then leave her untrammeled to exercise her own free will. He had entered the house and was going on to his rooms, when his eye caught the stream of light that came from one of the parlors. The folding doors were thrown open and he involuntarily paused upon the threshold taking in at a glance the ex quisite picture within. Not the paintings of the masters, nor the fine statuary, held his look cap tive, but the graceful figure of a living and lovely woman,in a rich black, flowing dress perfectly fitted to the outlines of her faultless form and enhanc ing the pearly whiteness of her skin. The laces about the neck of the high corsage were clasped with sprays of jeweled violets, while clusters of star- jessamine gleamed among the soft braids of dark hair. Her large, dreamful eyes wore a shade of sadness and the lids drooped their long fringes to her cheeks. For a few moments she gazed wistfully about her, then walking across the room seated herself before the organ. Opening the instrument, she ran her fingers over the keys in prelude and her voice rich, sweet and full of expression sang: “Hark ! ’tis the angelus sweetly ringing O’er hill and vale, Hark .' how the melody maidens are singing Floats on the gale; Ring on sweet angelus though thou art shaking My soul to tears; Voices long silent now with thee are waiting From out the years— From out the years.” The last, quivering notes dropped like a’sob upon the ears of the entranced listener. A far-away look had crept into her dusky eyes, and the white fingers were interlaced and now idly resting upon the wory keys. The haughty lines had left Bertram’s face, a light as the enkindling of slumbrous fires, leaped into his eyes, hitherto so cold and hard; and bending over until his quick, panting breath swept her cheeks, he softly murmured: ‘India !’ Startled, the beautiful dreamer sprang to her feet and first flushed then paled as she ’met his ardent gaze, ‘India, my wife, have you no sweet welcome for me ? Why do you ever avoid me ? Is it that I am an intruder, and that vou would forever banish me from your presence ?’ ‘It can make little difference what I desire—I, whom you mai'ried because circumstances forced it upon you—a wife but in name,’ she answered, the blood mantling brow and cheek, as proudly poising her regal head, she continued; ‘It is I, who am the intruder, and forced upon your acceptance, but repudiate as you may the tie binding us. you cannot deplore it more than I do; had it not been the dearest wish of my father, nev er would I have left my distant home and come to this cold, unlovely land: never have submitted to that last mockery of a marriage beside his dying bed. But for me you shall not be sacrificed; the world, less than nothing to me now, shall still he open for you, for I will renounce it that you may have back your freedom, and within convent -walls pass the remnant of a life blighted in its morn ing.’ ‘Never, by Heaven ! never shall you leave me, my own sweet, beautiful darling; you can, you must forgive the past and come to me, my wife.’ He would have folded her to himself in tenderest embrace, but divining his purpose, she glided past him anil in the next instant had left the room. His first impulse was to follow her, snatch her in- from t he sanctuary of her apartment and force her to listen to his demand that he be treated with t he re spect due a husband. But pride end self-respect de terred him. and he left the room and paced back and forth beneath the old elms with bowed head and thoughtful step. CHAPTER IV. It was a week later; Bertram and India had not met, for if she avoided him, he never sought her presence, evincing by neither word or-action that lie was conscious of her existence. Daily absenting himself, he regularly returned atnightfali, and from her window, India had learned to watch his going and await his coming. But there came a time at last when he returned not at the accustomed hour; the tw ilight had deepened into darkness, stars were twinkling in the skies; the katydids were chanting their vesper hymn, while not far distant sounded the note of the cuckoo calling for its mate. Sti'l Bertram came not. The hint's.bragged themselves on, and wearvp.nd heir’-sick. India at last -iueht b-r A. rr» Li;: •*» loss :l\ w:iKi-%i!, cc mi ei'mg thoughts. The night whined before sh.- closed her eyes in sleep, and the sun .vas shining in the heavens when she suddenly awoke. Rising, she rang for her maid, who for sometime had been awaiting her summons. More than once while making her toilet, she had looked into the girl’s face, while on her lips trembled the question: ‘Has your master returned ? But no, she would not ask; ‘for why should she care whether he be come or gone since it was his will ? she queried of herself. She scarcely tasted the light breakfast spread be fore her, but restlessly walked her room, ever and anon eagerly looking out of the window. Half aloud, she exclaimed: ‘This suspense is intolerable. I will go out in the grounds and wait—wait for what ?—for this fever ish madness to cool in my veins. ’ She had left her room, was passing the library, when by some impulse she turned and walked in’ She cast an inquiring glance around her, hurriedly taking in painting, statuary and books, then her eye caught a folded paper, lying on a table. Tak ing it up and seeing it addressed to herself, she broke the seal and read: ‘India, I accept my fate at your hands, be it weal or woe; at your door lies a soul’s destiny. I go hence that you may be free, and in other lands, under other skies, will learn submission perhaps to the decree that banishes me from your presence. The riches conferred on me are all your own and you need but consult jour late father’s confiden tial agent in business relations. Be patient but awhile anil I will be dead to the world that now kuows me; aye. mayhaps, dead indeed and out of your path forever. Until then still 3-ours, Bertram. The words seemed to blister themselves into her senses and from the depths of her soul, then palpi tated the anguished cry. ‘Oh ! pitying Christ.’ She crushed the note in hi r fingers and closed her e\ r es as if to shut out the dread truth, while for an instant the room seemed spinning around, bear ing her on in a wild dance. She was recalled to herself by the confused sound of voices and hurrying footsteps in the hall; and rushing out with a sudden presentiment of some thing terrible, she came without warning upon a strange group bearing a litter, on which lay the motionless form of Bertram; theghastl3', upturned face was stained with blood from an ugly gash on the temple, dark circles were around the closed e3 - es and the pallor of death on the lips. One quick glance before her and India knew all. ‘Oh ! Percy, my life, my love, dead, dead 1’ she cried, and with a wail that pierced the hearts of those around her she sank in a dead heap at their feet. ..... When India awoke to consciousness she was in her own room lying on a couch that had been wheeled to the window, with the kind face of the motherly housekeeper bending over her. ‘What is the matter with me and why am I here?’ she asked. ‘You have been ill, dear, but are much better now.’ ‘Ill, ill,’ she repeated. ‘Was it all then a delir- ous dream ? I did not drive my darling from me with my pride and coldness: he is not dead. I did not see him brought in ghastly and bloody ! Oh ! no, it was not a dream; I see it in your face; he is dead, my husband is dead; let me die too; I will not live. 7 It was Bertram’s rich voice that answered, as he stepped from the head of the bed and knelt down by her: ‘My dearest, my own wife, be calm. Yes you will live, you will live for me. See I am kneeling here by you alive and nearly well. I was thrown from my buggy and stunned and hurt, but not se riously. I did not suffer from it as I have done since with watching your suffering. But 30U are better, you will soon be well, and we will be happy Will 3 r ou forgive me, my own ?’ rrj- ‘Forgive !’ For answer she held out her arms and clasped his neck, as he pressed ber to his heart and kissed her on brow and lips. There was no more misunderstanding and es trangement at beautiful Lyndon. The shadow that had darkened their first year of married life passed forever and they grew more united in heart and purpose as time went by. “Somebody is Waiting for Me,” was wailed out by the man who bad been to the lodge, lost his night key, and could see th- shadow of his wife’s mother’s night-capped head on the curtain of the Bitting room.