THORNS FOE. THE ROSE. BY FANNY FERN.

Colonist, Volume IV, Issue 340, 22 January 1861, Page 4

THORNS FOE. THE ROSE. BY FANNY FERN.

" It will be very ridiculous in you, Rose, to refuse to give up that child," said a dark-looking man to the pretty widow Selden. "Think what a relief it will be, to have one of your children taken off your bands! It costs something to live now-a-days," and Uncle Ralph scowled portentously, and pushed his purse further down in his coat pocket; " and you know you have another mouth to feed. They'll educate her, clothe and feed her, and ——"

"Yes," said the impetuous warm-hearted mother, rising quickly from her chair, and setting her little feet down in a very determined manner upon the floor, while a bright flush passed over her cheek—" yes, Ralph, and teach her to forget and disrespect her mother!"

" Pshaw, Rose, bow absurd ! She'll outgrow all that when she gets to be a woman, even if they succeed now. Would you stand in your own child's light ? She will be an heiress if you act like a sensible woman ; and if you persist in refusing, you may live to see the day when she will reproach you for it."

This last argument carried some weight with it; and Mrs. Selden sat down dejectedly, and folded her little bands in her lap. She had not thought of that. She might be taken away, and little Kathleen forced to toil for daily bread.

Uncle Ralph saw the advantage he had gained, and determined to pursue it; for he had a great horror of being obliged eventually to provide for them.

" Come, Rose, don't sit there looking so solemn; put it down now, in black and white, and send off the letter before one of your soft womanish fits comes on again;" and he pushed a sheet of paper towards her, with pen and ink.

Just then the door burst open, and little Kathleen came bounding in from her play, bright with the lovliness of youth and health, and springing into her mother's lap, and clasping her neck, frowned from beneath her curls at Uncle Ralph, whom she suspected somehow or other to be connected with the tear-drop that was trembling on her mother's long eyelashes.

"I can't do it, Ralph," said the young widow, clasping her child to her, and raining tears and smiles enough upon her to make a mental rainbow.

" You are a fool!" said the vexed man, " and you'll live to hear somebody there tell you so, I'm thinking;" and he slammed the door in a very suggestive manner as he passed out.

Poor Mrs. Selden ! Stunned, by the sudden death of a husband who was all to her that her warm heart craved, she clung the more closly to his children. No woman ever knew better than Rose Selden the undying love of a mother. The offer that had been made her for Kathleen was from distant relatives of her husband, of whom she knew little, except that Mr. and Mrs. Clair were wealthy and childless, and had found a great deal of fault with her husband's choice of a wife. They had once made her a Bhort visit; and, somehow or other, all the time they were there—and it seemed a little eternity to her for that very reason—she never dared to creep to her husband's side, or slide her little hand in his, or pass it caressingly over his broad white forehead, or run into the hall for a parting kiss, or do anything in short, save to sit up straight, two leagues off, and be proper!

Now you may be sure this was all very excruciatiDg to little Mrs. Rose, who was 7erdant enough to think that husbands were intended to love, and who owned a heart quite as large as a little woman could conveniently carry about. She saw nothing so beautiful as those great dark eyes of his, especially when they were bent on her, nor heard any music to compare with that deep, rich voice; aod though she had beeo married many happy years, her heart leaped at the sound of his footstep as it did the first day he called her " wife."

Cared " the Great Reaper " for that ? Stayed he for the clasped hands of entreaty, or the scalding tear of agony ? Recked he that not one silver thread mingled in the dark locks of the strong man ? No!—by the desolation of that widowed heart, no! —he laid his icy finger on those lips of love, and chilled that warm brave heart, and then turned coldly away to seek another victim. And Rose pressed his children to her heart with a deeper love—a love born of sorrow, —and said, " We will not part." She knew that fingers that never toiled before must toil unceasingly now. She knew when her heart was sad, there was no broad breast to lean upon. She had already seen days that seemed to have no end, dragging their slow weary length along. She dared not go to a drawer, or trunk, or escritoire, lest some memento of him should meet her eye. She strugghd bravely through the day to keep back the tears, for her children's sake; but night came, when those little restless limbs needed a respite even from play, when the little prattling voices were bushed, and the bright eye prisoned beneath its snowy lid; then, indeed, the long pent-up grief, held in check through the day by a mother's unselfish love, burst forth ; till, exhausted with tearful vigils, she would creep at the grey dawn between the rosy sleepers, and nestling close to their blooming faces, dream of happy hours that would never come again.

And oh, the slow torture of each morning waking; the indistinct recollection of something dreadful; tbe hand drawn slowly across the aching brow; the struggle to remember 1 Then the opening eye, the unfamiliar objects, the straDge, new, small room; nothing home>like but those sleeping orphans.

And now, as if her cup of bitterness were not full, little Kathleen must leave her. Must it be? She paced the room that night after Uncle Ralph had left her, and thought of his words, " She may live to tell you so." Then she went to the bed-side and parted the clustering hair from Kathleen's forehead, and marked with a mother's pride tbe sweet, careless grace of those dimpled limbs, and noted each shining curl. There were the father's long lashes, his brow, his straight classic profile. Oh, what would be tell her! And then old memories came back with a rushiDg tide that swept all before it! Poor Rose!

Kathleen stirs uneasily, and calls " Mamma," and smiles in her sleep. Ob, how could she part with that little loving heart ? Countless were the caresses she received from her every hour. Watchful and sensitive, she noted every shade of sorrow on her mother's face, and, by a thousand mute remonstrances, testified her unBpoken sympathy. That little impulsive heart would be cased in an armour of frigidity at Clairville. She might be sad, or sick, or dying ; and Rose shuddered, and sat still nearer to her child. What companionship would she have ? What moral influence exerted? Might she

not even be weaned from the heart she had lain beneath ?

Ah, Uncle Ralph, you little knew, as you sat in your office next morning, and folded a little slip of paper back in its envelope, upon which was written the simple words, " Kathleen shall go "— you llttleknow at what cost! You marked notth« blistered paper and the unsteady pen marks, as you smiled satisfactorily and said, " Very concise and sensible for a woman."

Uncle Ralph did think of it again once as he walked home to his dinner; but it was only to congratulate himself that if Rose should be unable to support herself—-which he doubtedthere would be one less for him to look after. As to a woman's tears —pshaw! they were always crying for something; if it wasn't for that, it would be for something else.

We will pass over the distressful parting between mother and child. The little trunk was duly packed; the little clasp Bible down in one corner. A book-mark, with a lamb embroidered upon it, was slipped in at these words —" Suffer the little children to couae unto me, and forbid them not." Mother's Heavenly Father would care for Kathleen; there was sweet comfort in that.

And so Rose choked back her tears, and unclasped again and again the little clinging arms from her neck, and bade her sunny-haired child " Good bye !" and laughed hysterically as the little band waved another and a last adieu. Even Uncle Ralph felt an uncomfortable sensation, gave his dickey a nervous twitch, and looked very steadily at the tops of the opposite houses!

Two months had passed. Little Kathleen sat very quiet in that heated, schoolroom. There was a dark shadow under her eyes, either from illness or sorrow, and her face was very palt. Rose bad written to her, but the letters were in the grave of Mrs. Clair's pockets, never to be resurrectionised; so Kathleen was none the wiser or happier. Uncle Ralph made it a principle never to think of anything that impaired his digestion ; so he dismissed all uneasy thoughts of, or care for, his niece, and made no enquiries; because be was firmly of the opinion that" where ignorance is bliss ' tis folly to be wise."

" You are uncommonly obtuse about your lesson this morning," said Kathleen's tutor; " youVe told me twice that France was bounded south by the Gulf of Mexico. What are you thinking about ?" said he, as he grasped her arm.

" Sir ?" said little Kathleen abstractedly. " I say, what ails you, to be so stupid this morning ?" said the vexed pedagogue. "My head aches badly," said Kathleen; " and —and—"

•• And what ?" said Mr. Smith. " And—l—want—to see—my —mother !" said the child, with a burst of tears.

" Fiddlestick !" said the amiable Mr. Smith. {< If she cared much about you, I think she would have written to you before now. Mrs. Clair thinks she's married again, or something of that sort; so don't worry your head for nonsense. How's France bounded, eh ?"

The division-lives on the atlas were quite concealed by Kathleen's tears; so she was ordered in the presence of her grim relative, who coaxed and threatened in vain, and finally sent her to bed.

For two long weary months the free glad spirit of the child had been fettered and cramped at Clairville. No one spoke to her of home or her mother ; or, if they chanced to mention the latter, it was always in a slurring, sneering manner, more painful to the Roving, sensitive child than their silence. But why did mamma not write ? —that was the only wearing thought by day and night. And so Kathleen drooped, and lost color and spirits, and walked like an automaton up and down the stiff garden-walks, aud " sat up etraight," and " turned out her toes," as she was bid; and had a quick, frightened, nervous manner, as if she were constantly in fear of reproof or punishment.

" Bridget/'saidMrs. Clair, "how is Kathleen? —Got over her hysterics ?—I must break her of that."

" Dear me, no, ma'am; she's just fretting the soul out of her for a sight of her mother," said Bridget, polishing her face with a checked apron.

"Stuff, Bridget! the child's just like her mother ; and that's sayiug enough. However, give her a little valerian, and sleep at the side of her bed to-night. I'll look in in the morning," said the angular lady, as she smoothed out her dress and her wrinkles.

And so Bridget, obedient to orders, stretched her limbs " at the side of the bed," though she might as well have been any where else as there, for any response she made to that plaintive petition, through the long night, " Oh, do call my mamma ! please call my mamma!"

And so night passed; and the golden morning light streamed in upon the waxen face of little Kathleen." No breath came from those parted lips; no ringlet stirred with life ; the hands lay meekly beside her, and the last tear she should ever shed lay glittering like a gem upon her neck!

" Ralph!" said Mrs. Selden, " I shall start for Clairville to-morrow ; I can stay away from Kathleen no longer."

" You'll be mad if you do," said Uncle Ralph ; " the child's well enough, or you would hear ; you can't expect them to be writing all the time, Your welcome will be a sorry one, I can tell you ; so take my advice, and let well alone.

Mrs. Selden made no reply, but began to pack her trunk, and Uncle Ralph left the house. In about an hour's time he returned, and found Rose trying in vain to olasp the lid of her trunk.

"Do come here, Ralph," said she, without looking up, " and settle this refractory lock. Dear little Kathleen! I've crammed so many traps in here for her. How glad she will be to see me !" and she turned and looked up to see why Ralph didn't answer.

Brow, cheek, and lip were in an instant blanched to marble paleness. A mother's quick eye had spared his tongue the sad tidings.

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If you visit the lunaticasylum at 1 you will see a very beautiful womau, her glossy ringlets slightly threaded with silver. Day after day she paces up and down that long corridor, and says, in heart-rending tones to every o/ie she meets, " Oh, do call my mamma ! Won't you please call my mamma !"

A doctor and a military officer became enamoured of tbe same lady. A friend ssked her which of toe two suitors she intended to favour. She repUed that it was difficult for her to determine, as they were both such " killing" creatures.

believe that all our early disasters were owing to Colonel Gold's misconduct, and I am quite inclined to believe that the Colonel proved himself to be neither a Wellington nor a Washington ; but I should have thought much more highly of Dr. Monro's sincerity and patriotism if he had said a great deal more about Colonel Gold's misconduct in the House of'Representativesand a great deal less at his various electioneering meetings; if he had shown him up in his true light wher. he was in the plenitude of his power, and said nothing about him after he had become perfectly harmless, but a more distant and more safe object of attack.

Should the war not be brought to a close, or its conduct greatly altered, when your representatives meet, it will be their first duty to enquire who or what has prevented our soldiers from acting as British soldiers always do when properly directed. A well-founded, firm, and disinterested expression of opinion from the people's representatives could not be resisted ; and the obstacle to our success, whatever it may be, must bo removed at any price, since a war conducted as this thas hiherto been will not " convince the natives of our power," but of our weakness and folly, and lead us to nothing but ruin and disaster, misery and humiliation.

With regard to the measures that have recently been proposed for the future management of the natives, you will readily believe that I should not have felt disposed to subject myself or any of my fellow colonists to " three years' imprisonment, and a fine of five hundred pounds'' at the option of a single Justice of the Peace ; but I should have been quite disposed to support a very stringent measure to ensure the prevention of any more arms being sold to the natives. The Native Offenders Bill I should certainly not have supported. "Anything that would have compelled the natives to make themselves independent of those European comforts and luxuries, which they have now so largely adopted, would have necessarily made them more dangerous and unmanageable enemies in this inaccessible and mountainous country. The nominee native council, which is to possess no practical power, is simply an addition to the frightful number of officials to be supported by this small community. The same amount of money spent in giving a complete English education to a few hundred native children, would have been infinitely more likely to accomplish some useful purpose. The amount of debt incurred by the present ministry in time of peace, appears to me to be quite sufficient to prove to any thinking man that such an administration would take but a very short time to bring the colony to a state of hopeless insolvency. "Borrowing money for their successors to pay, except in cases of great emergency, is not only an imprudent, but a decidedly unjust course for any ministry to pursue, and one which would never' be allowed by any House of Representatives that did not contain by far too .large' a proportion of tax receivers, of men who are more interested in the emolument to be obtained from Government, that in the solvency and ultimate prosperity of the colony. No British ministry would have dreamt of proposing to a British parliament, even in_a time of war, to borrow the same amount of monsy in proportion to the population which the present ministry had been allowed to borrow in a time of peace; I believe borrowing money to be a more dangerous and delusive expedient for a community than it even is for an individual, and I should always be more disposed to support a Government' that would honestly and courageously meet its own expenses,' however great, than one which took upon itself the very pleasant and profitable business of spending,'and left its successors to find out some means of paying their debts. '

One of the first things which I should be anxious to reform in the House of Representatives is the constitution of the House itself. Nothing appears to me made more self-evident than that the measures proposed .1 by any executive should be submitted to the consideration and examination ofthose who are quite at liberty to adopt, alter, or reject them as they please, and therefore not to those who, holding office under, and receiving payment from the Government, can only be expected to aid as the mere servants or assistants of the Government by which they are employed; and it. appears even more unconstitutional and absurd for taxes to'be raised and debts to be 'incurred by those who have to receive and not to pay them. A Colonial Secretary, a Solicitor, and perhaps a Treasurer are necessary evils in this way; their presence in the House is necessary to explain the measures and intentions of the Executive of which they form ft principal part; and it is ; perhaps as well that they should be allowed to vote, ! as their own votes will generally be only about a fair set off against the votes of the place-hunters who are anxiously endeavoring to supplant them, and who are therefore pretty sure to be dissatisfied with everything they propose, but nothing can be more undesirable than that the votes and wishes of the independent members of tho House should be nullified by the votes of Land Commissioners and other paid servants of the Government ; nor can I understand how any intelligent constituencies can be induced to commit such a suicidal act as to choose for their representatives men in such a position; men who are not at liberty to consult their intrests, but who will naturally and almost necessarily support whatever government happens to have their office and salary at their disposal. The District Court has, I understand, been condemned by a resolution of the late House, and will, I trust, be abolished by the new one. The hardship and suffering endured by some unfortunate debtors: the improper expense incurred by the colony for the support of themselves and their families, and the unnecessary loss sustained by creditors, should long since have pointed out the necessity for some new law relating to insolvency. I should be disposed to support a law that abolished imprisonment for debt altogether, bat rendered a fraudulentdebtorliabletobe punished as a criminal. Such a law should offer every encouragement to an early and equitable compromise between a debtor and his creditors. I shall not trouble you with any remarks about the New Provinces Act. I see its warmest supporters do not now attempt to defend the manner in which it has been made to apply to this Province. It is I am sure unnecessary for roe or any other resident in the Middle Island" to say that he would not consent to the land fund of this Island' being taken for the purchase of land in the North Island; nor do I believe that any member of the House of ; Representatives ever seriously proposed anything .of the sort, although I see that both parties., in the House now accuse their; opponents of having some design of, that kind- And this reminds me that I ought to any something about what I cannot .designate .by any more appropriate name than the electioneering cry which the late representatives of this Province appear to have so unanimously agreed on. Two of the members for the province of Wellington, Messrs. Featherston and Fox, are painted by them' all in the blackest possible colors. Mr. Kellirig could' " discern their bad motives afar off." Dr. Monfb has now • discovered that the man he used to hold up to our poor common-place Superintendent as a pattern1 of eloquence, enterprize, and statesmanship; is very, extravagant and very inconsistent, and. has succeeded in. bringing his own province to.a. state of bankruptcy; and that Mr. Fox is all this and a great deal more. Mr. Curtis has exhibited such an extensive knowledge of the ''Wellington party's" motives and intentions that I should think he must have been extremely intimate with them, although Mr. Wemyss informs us that they were guilty of the most traitorous correspondence with the rebel. Wi Kingi. But, notwithstanding all these grave charges, we are told by the same honorable members that these very black legs would be the " inevitable''successors of the present ministers. Altogether I think you will agree with me that these gentlemen are endeavoring to prove by far too much for their own case, and that if these Wellington men are one twentieth part so unreasonable, so unjust, so un-English, and so traitorous as they are represented to us; it would be a great insult to the Governor and to the House of Representatives to suppose for one moment that such men would be deliberately chosen by the Governor, and supported by a majority of the House of Representatives; both of which must be done before they could become the "successors" of the present ministers. I must however admit that if I go to the House of Representatives, I shall go by no means prejudiced in favor of Wellington men or Wellington pretensions, which are not always of a very modest description ; but no dread of them will prevent me from attempting to " stir-up " or even to weed any Ministry that I may conscientiously believe to require it. I hope the new House of Representatives will not be without men ■ of sufficient common sense, prudence, and honesty to form more than 0110 Executive. But there is nothing thut I would more anxiously avoid than the slightest approach to that, purely factious opposition to any existing Government, which is generally more mischievous than the most servile and unenquiring support. I am, Gentlemen, Your obedient Servant, ! ALFRED SAUNEEKS. 1 Richmond, December 8,1860.