The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 | Page 9

her hands and bathe her temples. The strikingly
handsome betrayer leant in sullen and gloomy silence against the
mantel-piece, ready to treat all advances with stern and defiant
obduracy. The benevolent uncle stood with open arms and bland smile,
never doubting but that everybody was preparing for a simultaneous
rush to, and participation in, his embrace; and, finally, the pretty little
country girl, with her arms akimbo and her nose in the air, remained
mistress of the situation. Her unheard of innovation, of having done

something timely, sensible, and decisive, even though not put down in
the book, seemed to have paralyzed all the others. Ah! she was the only
one there who was not less than a shadow. The author felt his desolate
heart yearn towards her, and the next moment found himself on his
knees at her feet.
"Mary," cried he, "you are my only reality. The others are empty and
soulless, but you have a heart. They are the children of a conceited
brain and visionary experience; you, only, have I drawn simply and
unaffectedly, as you actually existed. Except for you, whom I slighted
and despised, my whole romance had been an unmitigated falsehood.
To you I owe my preservation from worse than folly, and my initiation
into true wisdom. Mary--dear Mary, in return I have but one thing to
offer you--my heart! Can you--will you not love me?"--
To his intense surprise, Mary, instead of evincing a becoming sense of
her romantic situation, burst forth into a merry peal of laughter, and,
catching him by one shoulder, gave him a hearty shake.
"La sakes! Mr. Author, do wake up! did ever anybody hear such a
man!"
There was his room, his fire, his chair, his table, and his closely-written
manuscript lying quietly upon it. There was he himself on his knees on
the carpet, and--there was Mary the house-maid, one hand holding the
brimming tea-pot, the other held by the author against his lips, and
laughing and blushing in a tumult of surprise, amusement and, perhaps,
something better than either.
"Did I say I loved you, Mary?" enquired the author, in a state of
bewilderment. "Never mind! I say now that I love you with all my heart
and soul, and ten times as much when awake, as when I was dreaming!
Will you marry me?"
Mary only blushed rosier then ever. But she and the author always
thereafter took their tea cosily together.
As for the romance, the author took it and threw it into the fire, which
roared a genial acknowledgment, and in five minutes had made itself
thoroughly acquainted with every page. There remained a bunch of
black flakes, and in the center one soft glowing spark, which lingered a
long while ere finally taking its flight up the chimney. It was the
description of the little country girl.
"The next book I write shall be all about you," the author used to say to

his wife, in after years, as they sat together before the fire-place, and
watched the bright blaze roar up the chimney.
--_Julian Hawthorne._

_A FROSTY DAY._
Grass afield wears silver thatch, Palings all are edged with rime,
Frost-flowers pattern round the latch, Cloud nor breeze dissolve the
clime;
When the waves are solid floor, And the clods are iron-bound, And the
boughs are crystall'd hoar, And the red leaf nail'd aground.
When the fieldfare's flight is slow, And a rosy vapor rim, Now the sun
is small and low, Belts along the region dim.
When the ice-crack flies and flaws, Shore to shore, with thunder shock,
Deeper than the evening daws, Clearer than the village clock.
When the rusty blackbird strips, Bunch by bunch, the coral thorn, And
the pale day-crescent dips, New to heaven a slender horn.
--_John Leicester Warren._
* * * * *
Those who come last seem to enter with advantage. They are born to
the wealth of antiquity. The materials for judging are prepared, and the
foundations of knowledge are laid to their hands. Besides, if the point
was tried by antiquity, antiquity would lose it; for the present age is
really the oldest, and has the largest experience to plead.--Jeremy
Collier.
[Illustration: COMING OUT OF SCHOOL.--VAUTIER.]

_COMING OUT OF SCHOOL._
If there be any happier event in the life of a child than coming out of
school, few children are wise enough to discover it. We do not refer to
children who go to school unwillingly--thoughtless wights--whose
heads are full of play, and whose hands are prone to mischief:--that
these should delight in escaping the restraints of the school-room, and
the eye of its watchful master, is a matter of course. We refer to
children generally, the good and the bad, the studious and the idle, in
short, to all who