IN A ROSE GARDEN.

Otago Witness, Issue 2695, 8 November 1905, Page 86

IN A ROSE GARDEN.

By M. B.

(For the Witness.)

She was such a dear little lady, so Old World looking and pretty. She wasn't young, but she had the heart of a girl, and the quaintest, most old-fashioned little ways. She always wore her snowy hair piled high on her head, just like the ladies of long ago, and her tiny hands were always covered with fine silk mittens. She lived up at the old house all by herself, but she wasn't lonely. Oh, no ! She had lots of friends who all adored her. She had never been married, but it wasn't <for lack of suitors, as anyone could tell. She had her romance, like most old maids. She was such a pitiful, unguessed - at little story.

Long years ago 1 , when she had been qxiite a girl, there had come a distant cousin to stay at her father's house. He wasn't handsome, he was even ugly ; but it was such a nice ugliness, and he was so big and strong. From the first moment he had seen Dorothy he had loved her. He was always thinking of her loveliness and of her sweet girlish ways ; but he wouldn't tell her because he was poor, and had quixotic notions quite gone out of date; and he knew that her father would never consent to his marrying her. One morninji he strayed down to the

rose garden, where he knew Dorothy would be. She had a huge sheaf of roses over her arm, and was standing idly looking down the garden. He watched her, himself unseen. He could just 6-ee the girlish curve of cheek and catch the sheen of hair under her hat. Oh ! the richness of it. He would have given anything just to touch it where it »ppled most over one ear. She turned, and~-se"eing the look in his eyes, ran towards him with a glad little cry ; but he, with a great outward show of indifference, praised her roses and admired their fragrant loveliness, and she, with a hurt, puzzled look on her face, turned and left him.

He stood for a. little after she 3iad gone, and a great longing came over him to call her back, to stretch out his arms towards her and tell of his great love for her. He trembled with exquisite joy as he thought of the answer she might have e;iven him, for he had seen her face not long since when she had turned towards him. He made a few halting steps in the direction she had gone, and called to her to come back to him ; but the wind — the same that had played with Dorothy not long sinee — rushed the words out of his mouth, and they never reached her. The wind came sweeping back again, .and with fiendish glee swirled round the man, seeming to mock at and taunt him. And that evening, • when nothing remained of the wind but - a low, tender murmur, Dorothy walked the winding paths of the rose garden alone.

Ifc was another summer's morning, hut many years had come and gone. The rose garden was luxuriant with blooms, and the air hung heavy with the scent of them. The little old maid came down the garden. There was a faint flush on her cheek, and a happy tremulous smile played about her lips. He was coming, coming, she kept saying to herself, and she thought with delight of his letter ; she knew it all so well. It was such a short, tender letter, and yet it bridged the silence of years. He remembered so well how he had seen her last standing near the roses in all, her girlish loveliness (and here she sighed). When he came back he knew he would find her in the rose garden; and so she pondered over his letter. And further on ne wrote that success had brought with it the longing to see her, and for that alone he blessed it. Ah, me! why had he ever left her! Dorothy, knowing the laurels he was bringing home, and how men, the greatest in the land, watched for his coming, wondered, and was glad. Here she wandered off into paths of bygone days, and tender little memories that had been long ago specially labelled : and laid by in lavender . were • gently ! brought out into daylight. Slow footsteps j came along the gravel path, and she turned and saw — for she was young again — iiot a bowed, stooping figure, with a fine white head and a kindly wrinkled face, but a man tall and strong, in the springtime of youth, with a great love shining in his eyes; and she stretched out her hands to him. with ' a little trembling laugh that was half a sob.