The Romance and Tragedy | Page 8

to see her daily.
That I laid vigorous siege to her heart was certain. I was most assiduous in all those little attentions that please a woman, and as our tastes were entirely congenial our hours of companionship were delightful to both.
If I were a few minutes late in making my evening call, very rarely the case, she would remark it, and I soon realized that the feature of her day was the hours passed with me. In fact, my presence was becoming necessary to her happiness.
As soon as this impression became fixed in my mind, I grew impatient at delay in the culmination of my desires, and felt I must soon urge Miss Wilson to relieve me of suspense by making me the happiest of men. Probably I should have done this within a few days had it not been for the fact that she left Brooklyn on her visit to Middletown, Connecticut. Then I decided to await her return.
On the morning of the sixth of September I found in my mail at the office an envelope addressed in a lady's handwriting, postmarked Middletown, Connecticut.
It contained a brief note from Miss Wilson, stating that on that day at one o'clock she would be due at New York and was going at once for a week at West Point, and asked me, if convenient, to meet her at the railroad station to escort her across the city to the boat.
There were three significant points in that note, the first I had ever received from her.
First, it commenced with "Dear Walter." Always before I had been Mr. Stowe. Next, it was signed as "Yours, with love"; and last, but by no means least, Miss Wilson wrote, as a postscript, "I shall be alone."
Would it be convenient for me to meet that train? I should say so.
I was at the station with a carriage at least half an hour ahead of time and I walked the platform of the old Twenty-seventh Street station of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company, back and forth, looking at my watch every five minutes and wondering if the train would ever come.
The train arrived on time, and as Miss Wilson alighted from the car, I greeted her. How I gazed into those beautiful eyes and tried to read there the love I hungered for.
We drove to the Hotel Brunswick for luncheon, and if "the proof of the pudding is in the eating," the luncheon, despite the good reputation of that old hostelry, then in its palmy days, must have been a poor one. Either that, or we lacked appetite--more likely the latter.
After luncheon we again took the carriage, and drove to the pier where the Mary Powell was awaiting her passengers.
It was during that drive, while passing down Fifth Avenue, that the word I so longed to hear was spoken. "Yes"--only a single word and yet it spoke volumes to my heart. It bound together for all time two beings, neither of whom had known for longer than a few months even of the existence of the other, and yet a divine power had brought these two hearts, beating in unison, to their natural mate. While the lips whispered "yes," the hand found its way to mine and the loving clasp was the only demonstration the surroundings permitted; but when the carriage had turned into a comparatively quiet side street and just before it reached the pier, I could no longer refrain.
Drawing the curtains at the carriage windows, I clasped to my heart the lovely girl who was now my very own.
Oh, what an ecstasy of bliss that moment was!
I have owned many handsome carriages, luxurious in their appointments, drawn by fine horses, but as I look back to that day of days, that shabby public hack, with its rough-looking driver, holding the reins over a pair of ill-fed animals, stands in my memory as almost ideal.
Of course I did not leave my promised wife at the boat. There was no reason I should not take that delightful sail up the river with her, and there was every reason why I should. I sought out a secluded spot on deck and there, comparatively free from observation, we let our thoughts revel in our new-found happiness.
It was possible, unseen, to occasionally clasp each other's hand, and in this way a sort of lover's wireless telegraph kept us in communication that emphasized to me the fact that my happiness was real and not a dream.
Our conversation was not very animated; we were too happy to talk, and the beautiful scenery of the Hudson was lost to us on that occasion.
To look into each other's eyes and read there all that was in our hearts was the supreme pleasure and happiness of the moment.
When the boat arrived