WWW—W

 

A WOODLANDS TALE.

The valley is lined with woods for a
long distance, but in one place, little more
than two miles from the sea, thereiaa
'elear space, where the big house standa
above its hanging girdens. Strangers hare
occupied it. for so ionga time that they
would wonder and be indignantdm you
all them by that name.

For 20 years an old man dwelt there,
continually divided betwixt the love of the
living. his daughter and a passion for his
dead wife that was forever drawing him
toward the land of twilight whither he
pictured her waiting for his coming. He
had lived hardly in his youth, an over-
worked and underpaid drudge, finding
the whole of his life’s pleasures in the
books of the great masters and in devoted
care for his mother. Apart from these in-
deed he had no life

A distant relative—~11 cousin of his moth-
er, a more name to him hitherto—died
and left a will whereby he became master
of the big house and witbal a man of
means. At first the change of circum-
stances rather detracted from his comfort
than otherwise. But he was a gentleman
and a person ghastly loved by all who met
him. He quickly adapted himself to the
change and made himself a place in the
hearts and homes of the neighboring gen-

 

He married a young wife and lived with
her in the big house for some few months
beyond a year. If he had died at the end
of that time, he would have thanked the
gods for the best life it was ever given to
man to enjoy, but that was not the thing
ordained. His wife died a day or two after
the birth of a daughter, the Rachel of the
story you are to hear.

She was a singularly lovable child, and
his continued thoughtfulness on her be-
half had the eflect of making a like caro-
f‘uluess for others more instinct in her.
She was a child in virtue of her simplicity
of heart, but her intercourse with others
was all made up of little, kindly courtesies
such as are in most of us the last refine-
ment of art.

In due course she went away to school,
and it would have been hard to decide
whether the coming of holiday time. when
she was at home once more, brought with
it more of joy to him or to her. She grew
tall and very beautiful. Her face was clear
cut and of a typo singularly patrician, but
the whole expression was one of delicate
gracioosnees, and her eyes looked out up-
on the world with the frankness of a bean-
tiful child’s.

There came in due season a lover, but
this did nothing to disturb the harmony of
the household. In matters of learning, it
may be, Eustace was not a fit companion
for the father of Rachel. but he was a gen-
tleman, like the other, and a man so made
that you would have sworn he would re-
main a boy at heart, no matter how long
he should live.

Eustace wasa soldier on leave of absence
visiting the home country, and the time
was one when every man of that calling
knew that the morrow might see him or-
.dered abroad. Perhaps the courtship pro-
gressed more rapidly than it would other-
wise have done because Rachel was aware
of the shortness of the time of freedom al-
lowed him and how he chafed at it. Yet
there was no binding speech between them
until the order came that be was to return
to his regiment and go to the war. He
had no particular skill in thouse of words,
and his speech with her was straightfor-
ward and to the point.

“I am leaving in two days to join my
regiment and go out in the Crimea. Since
I havc been in the west I have learned to
love you. Will you let me go happy be-
cause you have promised to be my wife?"

Twilight was deepening, and only a few
lights shone yellow in the windows of the
cottages along the valley. Rachel did not
huewer for a moment, though he felt some-
how the thrill of pain that shot through
her at the thought he was going to the
war. She glanced in the direction of the
ppen window, where her father satin the
twilight. Then she made answer as direct
.as the speech of her love.

“If that will make you happy,” she
said, “I will promise gladly. But, oh, I

wish you had not to go!”

The lovers lingeredalong time in the
.0001 and pleasant air, and it was not till
late that Rachel told her father of the
thing which had fallen out that night, and
the two received the old man's blessing.
Then there was a parting, and Rachel
knew that, save for an hour or two on the
next evening, she had seen the last of her
lover for many a long day.

The gardens descend the slope of'the val-
‘ley and from the orchard at the bottom a
pathway leads into the woods. It was this
path the lovers took on the night of their
farewells. The spring had come full early,
and oven the mulberrieo began to'think of
putting forth their leaves. In the woods
the primroses shone everywhere, and many
an open spacewaa carpeted with bluebells.
There were anemones and frail wood sorrel
in the shadow of scattered granite rocks
and the garlic flowered whitely where the
soil was marshy. Innumerable birds were
singing and every tangled bramble bush
hold a foolish blaokbird that fled with a
self betraying shriek as they approached,
making almost unconsciously for a glade
they had often visited together in the heart
of the woods.

“Ietuestop here," saidEustaoepi-esent-
ly. “Do you remember when we found
the place?"

“I have always known it," said Rachel.
“It was my playground when I was a
child, and sometimes I chose to fancy my-
self the sleeping princess and this the pal-
ace where I waited for the prince. I did
not think he would ever come."

“My princess!” cried the man, using
her as she sat beside him in the shadeof a
huge tree. “Out there I ahallalways think
ofyouaswaiting for me here.” ’

“Come back quickly," she said in a low
voice, "but do not think of me as waiting
here. The place will b3 too empty without
you. We will visit it together when you
have come back.”

“But you must not leave.“ unvisited,"
he said. "It is too dear to usfcr that, and
you will be nearer to me here than any-
where else. Look down the path."

He pointed in the digestion from which
theyhad come,and her Eyes obeyed his
command.

"Some day.” he said, “you will hear
that I am. comingand you will make
undymmeet me. But I shall notfind

‘W

THE VOICE, SATURDAY JUNE 19. 189?.

you—I ehallhardlyaeek you—in thobouae
or in the gang: 2 2:21: 2.1.1::
down to the wood and along the old path,
and you will be waiting is... The time
will seem long. You will think I cannot
be coming Then suddenly a foolish black-
hird will shriek away yonder, and inamo-
mcutlshali behersandyouwillbamine
forever.” ‘

Rachel turned her eyes upon him. "‘I
am that now," should. “I am yours for-
ever. But. oh, come back to me quickly.
Waking or sleeping, I shall be watching
that pathway until you are returned.”

“And I shall bethinkingof youwho are
waiting for me here," he said. “Remem-
ber that, and be sure that I will come
back to you. "

The last of the birds had coursed from
singing when the lovers rose and quitted
Rachel‘s inwer among the woods. They
traversed the pathway slowly and came at
last to the terrace. Eustace entered and
said goodby to Rachel’s father, and pres-
“NJ; the lovers parted, and the young
man strode out under the trees of the high-
way and so home.

The time which came after this parting
may be guessed at by all who know how
the war want. Rachel lived in a perpetual
fever of expectation, for the region where~
in she dwelt was at that time isolated, and
letters and newspapers alike came to hand
all too slowly. She used often to visit the
green glade in the woods, and, though she
maintained the outward serenity of her
aspect. her father was not a little‘troubled
on her behalf, seeing, despite her eflorts at
concealment how love held back the pen-
dulum of her life until this man should be
returned who had gone for an indefinite
period into a place where men were dying
daily.

“I dreamed of you last night," said the
distant lover in one of his letters. “I
dreamed that the day we Were hoping for
had come at last and that I was coming
down the pathway to meet you in the
woods. I found you there, of course, and
I think you had grown more beautiful
than ever. Do you wait in the woods?”

Rachel’s answer was this: “I am always
in the woods, whether in dreams or in the
body. You could not come back, though,
if it were ever so secretly, and find me not
waiting.”

The letters came intermittently, and
there was that in them—rather of things
left vague than of things said—that sent
Rachel often to thotrysting place up the val-

' icy. The spring came very slowly, but the
yellow primroses were out, and amid green
leaves the young hyacinth had already a
faint tinge of blue. She spent hours in
the very place where she had sat with Eu-
stace when they were together for the last
time, and her heartfollowed her eyes down
the woodland pathway and across the seas.

For at last there were no more letters,
and as these failed to arrive the girl be-
come more eager every day for the news-
papers, more terribly afraid to open them
because of the news they might hold. Her
father watched her with a. growing anxi-
ety, and was forever seeking to allay her
fairs, while at the same time he was ex.
cccding loath to give thorn the support that
a recognition of their existence would have
involved.

“He himself was seriously afraid for Eus-
tace, though there was no particular reason
why he should be more unfortunate than
his brothers. The old man saw anxiety
and fear were telling on his daughter;
that from a healthy woman she had be-
come within a few days a mere bundle of
nerves. One morning (known afterward
as the day when Eustace got the wound
that was to kill him) she suddenly uttered
a loud cry as she sat at lunch with him,
and it was long before she revived from
the fainting fit which immediately ensued.

From that hour Rachel's condition be
came more and more a cause of solicitude.
Her father was unhappy whenever she was
out of his sight, and that was frequently,
for something drew her to the trysting
place among the woods, and early and late
she would go down there and sit in the
pines where she had sat with Eustace and
where she had promised to await him
whenever he should be able to return.
Some hint of the state of affairs prevailing
at the big house had gone abroad among
the impressionable people of the country-
side, and the glade where she waited was
held sacred to her and sedulously avoided.

But at last (on the third day from that
of her fainting fit and toward the end of
the afternoon) she went down alone, and
when it was dark she had not returned.
For a long time her father suppressed his
natural unrest, but presently he found
that the servants were oppressed, like him-
self. by an infinite, nervous dread. llc dc-
termincd to go down to the heart of the
woods and bring Rachel home. One or
two servants accompanied him, bearing
lanterns.

A thin mist bad dulled the sky and hid-
den the stars. They walked in absolute
silence, and the night was like a huge
empty house in which their footsteps
echoed.

Fear was upon them, and a sense of
something terrible impending made them
waver betwixt eagerness to go forward and
dread of what they were to come upon.
At the edge of the woodlands the old man
paused and cried, “Rachel, Rachel!”

A dull echo was the only answer, and
they moved on in the direction of the
glade. Once again the old man raised his
Voice and called upon his daughter,
“Rachel, Rachel!”

But she answered to that call an hour
earlier, when her lover came to meet her in.
the glade, at the momént of his death
across the am. She was sitting under the
great nee where they had spent their last
hours in life together. The radiant smile
had not yet gone from her lips, nor was
there any horror in the eyes that stared
across the glade and down the woodland
path by which he had sworn to come back
when he was fru—Inndon Black and
White.

 

man-dung. '

“Did any one drop a 50 out pieoel,"
askedtheshabbymaninthenidstof the
crowd watching the safe 30 up.

“No," said they. “But you are an hon
est man anyway."

“And now for the second tion,’
said the shabby man. “I did not pick up
any 50 cent piece, but will come one kind-
ly dropanlckel in thiahat uthoreward
of honesty "—Indianapolia Journal.

 

There is Maintaining tint re-
quires hiding at the bottom of a mystery.
I —Elamthoene.

 

 

THE LONG JOURNEY.

levermdyiageyeglwoen,
Butmotoancadowalovelierm
Xe'eriaaduthofwhatwelee
Buffeedaaliteintheisiobe.

Whatiortheeinthisduatyplaaf

Ye withyourmighty mindofmani

Wmthcbeeandhirdtoflua!

Wait, and waiting ye may aeol

Wellitbe.a.nyebenotgueot

'Xoath theriftedroct of adcadman’abreaatl
nPostWheelerinNewYm-hfi.

.W m

On Sunday morning they turn out, old
and young, the strong and the bait, dressed
in their best, to attend church. Only
“works of necessity and mercy" keep them
at home. The attendance at early morn-
ing mass during the week is limited to
the elderly women—the less active mem
bers of the community. Our cure is very
severe, but he has tomake the spiritual
side of things at in with mundane inter-
ests, which are very strong at certain sea-
sons of the year. For instance, be cuts the
sermon and the service short during hay-
making and harvest so that the people
may work. Unless he were accommodating
in this respect it is possible that his wor-
shipers would diminish. On the. other
hand, he doesn’t encourage such frivolitias
as dancing. If any of his enfants de Marie
dance at the village fete, they can sing no
longer in the choir, and their names are
removed from the tableau of the congrega-
tion. He is a severe moral censor, M. le
Cure. There is no record of illegitimacy
at the mairie, except of one oflender, who
is ostracized and lives in an isolated house
near a. wood—looked down upon us much
as scarlet woman ever was under the
star-nest Puritanism.-—-Contempomry Ba-
view. ‘ .

 

Squeezed by Sun and Moon.

A very curious observation was made by
Dr. Nansen during his adventurous jour-
ney toward the north pole concernng the
effects of the tides on the floating ice. The
worst pressures experienced by his ship,
the From, when enclosed in ice (except
those due to high winds) occurred regular-
ly about the time of new and full moon,
the greatest being at new moon. The
reason was because the tidal currents near
the margin of the polar ice fields drive the
floating ice before them, and at new and
full moon the tidal attraction of the sun
is added to that of the moon, so that they
may be said to pull together, and the cfl‘ect
on the sea is increased. Dr. Nansen also
observed that the ice does not form by di»
rect freezing on the Polar sea to a thick-
ness exceeding 13 feet. That was the
maximum noticed by him, but in the ice
fields the thickness becomes greatly in-
creased by the piling up of broken masses
under the action of winds and waves.
“The massive ice cap which many explor-
ers have believed to cover the polar area,”
he said in his recent lecture in London,
“has been shattered. Instead of it we have
ever wandering ice fields. ”—Youth's Com-
panion.

 

Population of AuMIn.

Australia could be made to support
400,000,000 inhabitants of the black or
yellow races, able to endure .tbo climate.
The present pepulation is only d000,000.

CON i'r.!-.TED.

 

He cares not how the seasons go—
Provldence in weather.

And if the stormy tempcsis blow,

Rain or sun/shine, hail or snow,

Round and round the world will go,
And we'll reach home together!

He cures not how the seasons go-
Providt‘nt c- in weather.

And when the roses cease to grow

He's thankful we’re in time for snow.

For lct“id and round the world will go.
And we'll reach home together.

-—Ail:mtu. Constitution.

- ‘—

 

 

W’omau suffering as well as woman
suffer-age has struck Colorado, on adver-
tisement in a. paper of that locality being
thus worded: “Wanted by a competent
woman, a. place to work for her husband’s
board.”

TROY LAUNDRY

4-65 ALEXANDER. STREET \VEST.

* * *

Work Turned Out in First-Class Style

A Trial Solicited.

Nksfiflwn
EAUNDRY WORK?

Our Price for
Shirts, washed, starched and ironed 12;

 

 

 

 

 

Collars and God's .................. 3
Linen Handkerchiefs ...........-.. 3
SilkTics ........................... 5

Try our fine work on shirts, collars and
runnruoxn 26.

MANITOBA LAUNDRY

Walter nanny George Baa‘by

BENIN-WILLIAMS.

PAINT.
Covers most, looks best,
wears longest, is the most
economical and the fullest
measure. For sale by

’1". 5. Hamilton.

5;! Main Street.

 

 

 

 

 

= Subscribe -=

~FOR—

®®®®®®®®®®®>®>®

THE “VOICE”

 

@®@®®@®@®@@®®

Subscrip ions Ony $1 Per Year.

 

 

Mu...” .

@

 

is

See us before placing your

 

Printing

 

 

 

'l IL' n

 

 

that line.

Q

Q

‘Qv

Q

readily given.

~

envelopes, etc.

‘9

such work.

Q.

“r

work.

‘33

i?

 

We are prepared to do everything in

Estimates on all kinds of printing are

YOur organization wants letter heads,

Give THE VOICE a chance to bid on all

with can put the Umon label on our

 

 

 

 

The Voice i’ub. C0.

BOX 722.