A SPRING IDYLL.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VIII, Issue 36, 12 September 1891, Page 373

A SPRING IDYLL.

MRS L. FROST RATTRAY.

BY

f ES, he had better marry. Not that his life seemed to lack anything. His * xx> k s > his lectures, his studies, filled bis mind, but some of his grown-up young lady pupils had become attentive—not attentive to their classes, or to the subject they were supposed to be studying, but to him. And it was tiresome. -yi Instead of the rapt look bent on the board as the professor lightly sketched the geological formation of Mount Egmont, an earnest, absorbing, heartsearching gaze was fixed on the lecturer himself. It was annoying. His walk to the little cottage in the suburbs where he lived was a stiangely favourite one with all the young ladies from far and near. It was disturbing. A man such as he was, without a particle of conceit, but endowed with an unusual amount of modesty, found this complimentary persecution interfered terribly with his work. So he sought counsel of a friend, laying the case clearly and concisely before him. The friend advised marrying. Before him now loomed an awful problem. The sweetscent of the violets and primroses, the auriculas, the azaleas, daphne, together with lovely bush creepers which filled his room, also filled his soul with puzzled, distracted thoughts of the givers. He could not choose a wife. In despair even more deep than that which had marked his previous visit, he again called on his friend, and laid this second perplexing problem before him. His friend suggested drawing lots. This prosaic idea revolted the pure soul of the professor, and for days the shadow of a great trouble hung over him. More careworn grew his handsome face. Even in his glorious dark hair and moustache a few white threads became visible. And this sight wrung the hearts of his pupils. So they met together, and wrote him a combined and eloquent little letter, entreating their honoured master and dear professor to impart to them his grief. And the professor felt comforted. For ont of the whole class only one had not signed the loving epistle. So she should be his wife. Under the gumtrees one evening he met her. She was returning from visiting a poor neighbour, and it was not his usual way home. He was no polished courtier, no skilful wooer. He said, simply, • 1 want a wife.’ And she said, ‘ Do you want me?' And his whole heart and soul responded in the words his lips uttered, * Yes, you, darling.’ And so they were betrothed. And later, very quietlywere married. And the professor’s classes fell off considerably. And at home in the little cottage, the wife worked her hardest, putting her whole true woman’s soul into her household duties. Her grand woman’s love and devotion she bestowed upon her husband. And he? At first it was stiange, pleasantly strange. Then he became used to it. New faces greeted him at his classes. He grew more popular than ever. He was busy, wrapt up in his work, tired when he reached home. He talked so much all day, it was not to be expected he could talk in the evenings too—except when some special lecture had to be given. He saw little of his wife. His house was clean and comfortable, his dinners well cooked, punctually served, bis shirts and his socks cared for. What more could any man want ? So he thought. For his life was full of diversified work, his mind occupied with congenial occupation. He saw plenty of people in the day-time, and he liked his silent evenings. And she 1 Perhaps she was disappointed of her ideal. Who can say Women have such strange fancies. She had thought, perchance, of a long life of pleasant, intellectual companionship. She had a mind, an active, clever receptive brain. Did she dream of being a humble sharer in her husband’s work ? Was all her irksome, housewifely toil brightened at first by the dear delight of knowing it was for the man she loved, and who, she fondly believed, loved her? Ah ! how foolish she was. And day by day the dream of that early spring faded away. The hot summer sun scorched it. By autumn it was as a dead leaf, and when winter came, with its piercing winds, its blighting frosts, and cheerless snow, the wife, chilled to the heart, felt that, like the withered leaf, she, too, must become mould. Again it was spring, and the professor's house was once more heavily scented with the perfume of the September flowers. But this time they were fashioned into wreaths and crosses, and lay on the still forms of his dead wife and his baby boy.