LOVE'S QUESTIONINGS. Oh what is lovelier than my lady's face, What more enchanting than my lady's smile? What is more thrilling than my lady's touch? Oh what more rapturous than my lady's kiss? To which my stammering verse can give no name, What need for further question? They who know These things are full of all delights; but oh! Much fuller that of which they are a sign,— The love that lives in them and makes them mine. The months passed on, and Lucy Forrest and Paul Pelican were still graceful and gracious actors in the little happy comedy which was played before the onlooking eyes of Brookfield. But it is the misfortune of the dramas of real life that they want unity; and the play which is a comedy at the beginning, is a tragedy at the end. Across our little comedy the tragic shadows soon began to shoot, and at last came a day in which the tragedy had the whole field to itself. People began to notice that the gleams of strange light, which sometimes shone out from Mrs. Forrest's eyes, became more and more frequent; the tired look upon her face seemed to be giving place to an expression of settled anguish; new questions began to be asked concerning her; new whispers arose here and there; the children whom she taught came home with stories of inexplicable things she had said and done; and anxious parents began to find all kinds of reasons for quietly taking them away, and keeping them at home, or sending them elsewhere for their daily mental culture. Destitution, which had been bravely kept outside the door of Heath Cottage, began to invade the little dwelling. This was not the worst, but the worst was not long in coming. The twilight was just melting into darkness, on a still evening in the later spring, when Lucy and Paul, returning from one of their now infrequent lovers' strolls, found the house empty, and the emptiness struck them both dumb with a vague fear. Lucy had been away only for an hour, and she had left her mother more quiet and cheerful than usual, but in an instant she was overcome by a new terror." Hurried inquiries were made, and one neighbour testified that she had seen Mrs. Forrest walking quickly along the road towards the open country. She was sure she had not been mistaken, though it was growing dark; for her attention had been drawn, and her wonder excited, by the strangeness of choosing to walk, at such an hour, along a road which led only to a lonely hamlet, and ran for some distance along the bank of a more lonely lake. When Lucy knew where that last sight of her had been obtained, she knew all; the next hour or the next day could tell her nothing more. The road passed the lake; she knew her mother had not passed it; that its waters had cooled the fever of her brain for ever, and given her rest at last. It was even so. The dawn brought to an end the mystery of the night; for the dead body of Lucy Forrest's mother was drawn from the dark depths of Stannington Mere. And then every one knew the story of which this was the awful catastrophe; how ever since her husband's death, Mrs. Forrest had been day by day losing her old patient tranquillity, and becoming restless, excited, strange; how gradually the terrible idea that she had got beyond the reach of the Infinite Pity had gained upon her, and tinged all her emotions with one lurid colour; how her daughter had often sat up all night helplessly listening to her awful lament that she was forsaken ; how appeals for help to those from whom help was due, had all been disregarded until the very day of the fearful ending, when a relative in a distant county had written to say that he was coming to see what could be done; and how, in that last happy hour, when she and Paul had walked home in the twilight, she had told him that she had at last a quiet mind, for her mother seemed better, and that, at any rate, aid was near. Mr. George Forrest, Lucy's great-uncle, came duly,— only a day too late. He was a kind man, and the day-the many days-had been lost more by want of thought, than want of heart. But still they were lost; and, so far as the past went, he might as well have been unkind. In the present, however, kindness could do some little, and that little was done. Mrs. Forrest was buried in a quiet corner of St. Cuthbert's churchyard; one or two who had learned first to pity and then to love the woman for whom life had been too hard a task, planted flowers upon her grave; and it was soon arranged that with Mr. George Forrest, Lucy was for the present to find a home. After she had gone, I saw more of Pelican than I had seen of him for some months; had more unreserved talk with him, and began to understand more clearly than ever the real nature of the mutual attraction which he and Lucy exercised, each towards each. The theory which seems to be implied (certainly nothing so utterly prosaic as a theory is expressed) in the following little poem, written during his brightest days,-the theory that mutual love is the inevitable result of the meeting of certain personalities, rather than of the recognition of certain qualities, is in the main true enough, and was as true in his case as in others; but it did not supply all the truth, for those who knew Paul and Lucy best, saw most clearly the visible characteristics which drew them to each other. Nevertheless, the poem is perhaps worth quoting here as an attempted solution of that most puzzling of social riddles, "What attracted such a man to such a woman?" or, "How could such a woman bestow her affections on such a man?” SHE AND I. Why do I love my love so well? I try to tell, I cannot tell, It still remains a mystery. Her face is very sweet to me, Her eyes beam tenderly on mine; But can I say I never see Face fairer, eyes that brighter shine; This thing I surely cannot say, If I speak truth and do not lie; Yet here I am in love to-day, For she's herself, and I am I. |