ONLY A GIRL'S HEART.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XXIII, Issue 2296, 10 April 1875, Page 4

ONLY A GIRL'S HEART.

_* BY MRS. SOUTHWORTH,

Author of "Self Made," "Brandon of Brandon," " Fashion and Famiue," "Eudora," &c. CHAPTER m the ferryman's return. We must return to Gertrude, whom we left alono in the old ferry-house waiting through the dreary hours that precede the dawn, waiting anxiously for the appearance of her grandfather. Long she sat there after her eccentric guest hnd left her. She was startled at length by the striking of the clock. It struck four. A shiver passed through her sensitive frame, as from the chill of some approaching evil. She arose, went and opened the front door and looked out. The house faced the East. Sho looked across the deep and narrow rirer, to the dark and frowning precipices on the other side. The dawn was just reddening over their cedarpluraed summits. She glanced towards the little landing. It was deserted. There was not a living soul to be seen. The party who had been shouting "boat !" for the last two hours had evidently given up, and gone off in disconragement. ~" They have gone down to the next ferry ; that is fnll seven miles off. The poor young man may get clear away ! I wonder how he fell into trouble ! — and, oh ! I wonder what keeps my dear grandfather so long ?" she ndded, anxiously as she turned to the left and looked np the winding bridle-path that led through tho moun-tain-pass, and up to the elevated natural plateau called Hill Top. The rain storm of the preceding night had swollen all the mountain streams, that now dashed down the rocks with fearful v*f6"city, tumbling at last into the Wilde. The wind had torn and broken the evergreen trees that clothed the mountain-side, and a thunderbolt had stricken down a gigantic pine that grew at the foot of the precipice, and now lay across the beach, a fallen monarch of the wilderness. While Gertrude was still gazing on this devastation, her grandfather suddenly 9tood beside her. She started slightly and looked at him with a low .exclamation of surprise. He seemed to have aped full ten year 3 since she had seen him the night previous. His face was pale, his brow corrugated, his eyes sunken. "'Dear Grand. ! lam so glad to see you back at last," she exclaimed : then growing graver, she inquired : Our neighbor, General Slaughter ?" "Gone," answered the old man, reverently raising his broad-brimmed hat. " Gone !" echoed the girl, solemnly. Gabriel Haddon bowed his silver grey head in silence, ami then — " Are you up so early, my little True, or have you been watching through the night P" he kindly inquired. * "I have been up all night, dear Grand. And you, too, have lost your rest, I fear." "I have not been at ease, child." "I am sorry for that; but come in and lie down. I will get yon a cup of coffee," she urged, affectionately taking bis hand. " Yes, we will go in ; bnt Jess, can get my coffee. I want you. I want to talk with you," sighed the old 'man, turning with her toward the house. "Jess, has not yet returned, gi-and-pa," she explained as they entered the door. " What ! and you have been quite alone all night ? ' I suppose that is the reason that you did not go to bed," said Gabriel Haddon, as he sank exhausted into his own easy-chair, by the front window. " No, dear grandpa, I did not go to bed, not because I was alone, but because I had company," answered Gertrude, with a smile. "Company ?" echoed the ferry-man. "Yes, Grand., a traveller who came down to the stops on the other side of the river and called for the boat. I went and brought him across. He stayed until the storm was over, and went away about an hour ago. And there is something- about it which I am afraid you will not like. He was soaking wet, through and through. I lent him a suit of your clothes, and he wore them away, leaving his own, and sixty dollars in money to pay for yours — about three times as much as they aro worth, dear Grand. ; and indeed I could not help his leaving so much, he would do it, bnt you know you can save it, and when you see him. again you can make him take it back. Can you not ?" " Yes, my dear," tho ferry-man answered mechanically. He scarcely beard or understood the question. He did not inquire the name, or tbo age, or description of the stranger who had spent the night alone with his granddaughter in the ferry house. In his deep abstraction and absorption in some other hidden subject, be seemed not to have realised that there was anything unusual in the occurrence " Now if you will lie down and rest, dear Grand., I will go and make your coffee," said Gcrtrudo, stooping and tenderly kissing his forehead before leaving the room. And Gertrndo took a pail and passed out into the yard and through the back gate to tho side of the precipice, whence from a fissure in tho rocks sprang a little fountain of crystal water. Sho filled her pail at this spring and j returned to the houso to fill her toakettle. As she entered tho kitchen, howover, tbo towering black form of Jessie Bell mot hor vision. '

"Oh, Aunt Jess., I'm so glad you have come home ! Grandfather has returned" very tired. I think he was up all night with General Slaughter," said Gertrndo. u Yes, chile, likely he was," exclaimed old Joss., as she took off her long sunbonnet and hung it up, and then set about getting the breakfast. Gertrude took a table-cloth from the drawer of the dresser, and went into tho parlor to set the table. There she saw her grandfather still reclining in the elbow-chair, by the window. Gertrude laid the cloth, took the breakfast service from the glass cupboard, and arranged it on the table, and then went out into the kitchen to cook the omelette, and hurry the other preparations for breakfast. In a few moments, the morning meal was laid npon the table. The sun, which had been above the horizon some minutes, now appeared over the top of the eastern mountain, sending his beams across the river 'and through the window into the humble parlour of the ferry-house, beaming on the white cloth and flashing on the metal cotfeo-pot and cutlery. " Come, dear Grand., a Btrong cup of coffee will do you good," said Gertrude, placing his chair at the table and taking .her own seat behind the tray. Gabriel Haddon sat down, asked a blessing, and then took and drank the cup of coffee she had poured out for him, and ate a part of an omelette and a part of a waffle — all in a mechanical and abstracted manner, as if he were scarcely conscious of what he was doing. While he was still at breakfast the sound of horses' feet were heard galloping up to the gate, where they seemed to stop. In a few moments swift steps were heard approaching the house, and a rap sounded on the front door. The ferryman arose and opened to the visitor — a messenger from Hill Top Hall. " Ah, Saturn, ray mau, is this you ? You are wanting the boat, of course ?" said the ferryman. " Yes, marster, if you please. I am going to Wildeville to^etch the undertaker, and would like you to put me across immediate, if possible," replied the messenger. " Certainly, my man, I will go this moment," said the ferryman. And without returning to the room he took his hat from the nail and walked down to the boat-house, followed by the negro. Meanwhile, Gertrude, assisted by old Jess., cleared away the table and put the room in order. At the end of half an hour the ferryman returned. The little piece of routine work seemed to have broken the spell that bound him ; brought him to himself. He found the sitting room in perfect order, and his granddaughter seated at her little work-stand, diligently sewing. " What are you making, child ?" he inquired, seating himself in his easy chair by the front window. " Making nothing, dear Grand. ; only putting new cuffs on your shirtsleeves," she answered, holding op her work. " Put it up, my little True, and draw up your chair here close to mine. I must talk to you," said Gabriel Haddon, gravely. Gertrude folded the shjft and laid it carefully away in her work-stand drawer, together with her needle, thread, and thimble. She closed the drawer, set the stand in its corner, and drew her chair to the old man's side. CHAPTER Tin. THE OLD FERRY-MAN'S STORY. " Listen to me, my little True," said the old ferry-man, solemnly. " I told you — did I not ? — that every great crisis in my life had, by some unacconntable coincidence, occurred in the fifteenth day of July, and at intervals of fifteen years ?" "Yes, dear Grand." " I told you also that last night, being the fifteenth of Jnly, and just fifteen years from the last important event in my life, was another critical epoch, and that, by inference drawn from all precedents, as well as by the foreboding of my own prophetic soul, I expected another crisis." " You did, indeed, grandpa." "My child, the crisis came, oven darker, more terrible, more agonizing, than I could have foreshadowed !" " Oh, grandpa ! Now Heaven forbid that any evil should have come to yo» or should threaten you in your old age," said Gertrude, in a tone of the deepest sympathy. "Amen, ray child, for your sake even more than for my own. But that you may understand what has happened, my dear, I mast refer briefly to my own early life." "Yes, tell me about yourself, dear grandpa. I have so longed to know all about you. Open your heart to mo for once. Not in idle curiosity I ask you, dearest, bnt in affection and sympathy," murmured Gertrude, raising her tender dark eyes to the old man's face. " I knofe it, my little True. I know | your faithful heart as I know my own. Child ! I have lived all my life in this cottage, working, in the garden and plying tho ferry-boats. You may judge that my career has been a very monotonous one, with the exception of three striking opisodes. Well, my child, to bogin with my j natal day, I was bofn on tho 15th of' July, sixty years ago. I was tho sole surviving child of a family of seven boys and girls. T grew to be a very studious lad, fonder of books than of tho garden or tho ferry-boats, and my

father, pleased at the tnrn my mind was taking, sent me to the village school at Wildeville, and bought me all the books I wanted. This accounts, Gertrude, for my being a little better read than some of my wealthier neighbours," added the old man, with a slight smile. "On the 15th of July, and my 15th birthday, the first great sorrow of my life fell on me. My father, a hale, vigorous man, of fiftyfive, was drowned while crossiug the ferry in a storm, between midnight and morning, thus leaving my mother to the care of his only son. On that dark day, my dear Gertrude, I really seemed to have passed abruptly from boyhood to manhood, with no interval of youth between. On that day I laid aside my student's habits, and took up the burden of life for good. On that eventful day also I found a pure white lily," added the old man, breathing the last words in low, tender, sorrowful tones. "A white lily ?" echoed Gertrude, softly. "Lily Vale, the granddaughter of General Slaughter, and the heiress of Hill Top Hall and Foiest Lodge. She had lost both her parents in her earliest infancy, and was then the ward as well as the heiress of her grandfather. She was just six years old when I first saw her, and the loveliest vision of beauty that ever blessed the eyes of man. She came down to the ferry that day like a little princess, attended by her retinue — her governess, her maid and her footman — to have a row on the river before the sun should grow too hot. For the morning after the storm was very calm and pleasant. " She was the loveliest blonde ; with the fairest complexion, the clearest blue eyes, and the lightest, brightest hair you ever saw ; it was silver in the sunshine and golden in the shade. This radiant hair was a halo of glory arouud her face and form ! This heavenly vision of a child, clothed in white raiment, and adorned with wild flowers she bad gathered on her way, came that day into the dark house of death, bringing light and life with her. She did not see the gloom at first ; she ran to me so joyously, saying : "'Are you the ferry-man ? Grandpa says, will you please get the boat and take us for a row on the river this morning ? It is my birthday, and I am to have a party this evening, and have all the little girls and boys. Will, you come, too, and dance ?' " As she asked this with pretty little lady like grace, she looked at me and smiled ; but when she saw my grieved face and tearful eyes — for I had been weeping liko any woman over my dead father — her tone changed, and she said : " ' Oh, what is the matter ? Don't cry, oh, don't cry';' and she put her little fair hands up and drew my face down to hers, and laid her soft cheek against mine. " I had always loved children and the tenderness of this lovely little one touched my heart, and opened again the fonntain of my boyish tears, and I wept freely : but somehow, not so bitterly as before. The child was greatly distressed. She gave herself up to the task of comforting me. She smoothed my hair and patted my face with her liny fair hands. She pressed her rosebud lips to mine ; she drew my bead down upon her sweet, little, pitying bosom. There was no fear, no bashful oess, no self-consciousness; instead, all pity, tenderness, and an angel's freedom in self-forgetfulness. "Meanwhile, from the very beginning of this little interview her attendants had followed her into this room and had been silently beckoned by my afflicted mother and conducted into the chamber which is now my own, bnt where then lay the remains of my poor drowned father. She showed them the body and told them of the fatal accident as a sufficient reason why her son could not go out in tho pleasure boat that day. "When they returned to this room the governess told her little charge j that they must all go back home. "My docilo little angel made no j opposition, uttered no complaint, but kissed me again and begged mo not to cry any more and she would come to see mo very often and bring me all her books to read, and her white kitten, and her canary-bird, if they could do me any good. So she left me, still ; wondering at the cause of my distress ; for I could not then bring myself to tell that bright little creature anything about death, — especially as I understood death at that period of my life. " Two days after this we laid the body of my father in the Old Red Sandstone Church-yard, where you have seen his grave. " I succeeded to the little property and to the management of the ferry. My mother was legally and nominally my guardian ; but I was really and practically hers ; for I ran the business as well as my father had done in his best days." [TO BE CONTINUED.]

HoLiiOWAY's Pills.— Enfeebled Existence. — This medicine embraces every attribute required in a general and domestic remedy ; it oven urns the foundations of disease laid by defective food and impure air. Id obstruotiona or congestions of the liver, langa, bowels, or nay other organs, theso Pills are especially serviceable and eminently sucoossful. They should be kept in readinasa in every family, being a medicine of incomparable utility for young persons, especially those of enfeebled constitutions. They never caose pain or irritate the most sensitive nerves or most tender bowels. Hollo way's Pills aro the best known purifiers of the blood ; the most aotivo promoters of absorption and secretion, whereby all poisonous and obnoxtons particles aro removed from both solids and fluids. It was Coleridgo who said, " somo men aro like musioal glasses— to prodnoe the finest tones you most keep them wet." An Aberdeen baby is said to have inherited the eyes and nose of his father, bat tho cheek of his undo, who is an instarauoe agent.