IRENE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVI, Issue 19, 31 August 1888, Page 25

IRENE.

(From Woman.) It was all settled. John and I were to be married in the autumn and I bad received my mother's consent to my going to board in Philadelphia for a few weeks, to buy my trousseau. Irene de Berghem was to go with me, as Bhe also— l never like to think of Irene's engagement — it seemed such a half-hearted affair. Now, John and I had fallen in love with each other at first sight — met a few times on the skating pond, walked home together in the moonlight, and then, with the glad consent of all our relatives, concluded to take one another for better and for worse. But Irene— she was infinitely prettier than I— very emotional ; very romantic ; and her JUnce was fifty years old, bald, and her father's most intimate friend. A " family arrangement," they called it and Irene, who, with all her love of fan and zest for life, was shy and timid, submitted to the extraordinary decree. It maddens me now, when I remember how those old people plotted to sell their child "all for her own good." But French people are so queer 1 1 waß very glad that an old friend of my mother's, dear Mrs. Thayer, who was boarding in Philadelphia, had offered to take charge of us. It would be so much pleasanter to have her to consult with about shops and other things. Moreover, two young girls alone would be open to remarks, papa said. We wtire in fine tpirits when we reached the " City of Brotherly Love." Mrs. Thayer met us and took us to her boarding place, where she had secured for us a cheerful, ■unoy little room, close to her own. In a few days we felt at home ; everyone was so kind, and all the people in the house were so pleasant. There was an old navy officer, who eat opposite to us at the table, and a' young married couple, very much absorbed in one another ; 2nd in the rooms just beyond ours a brother and a sister lived — the brother young, fair, with a frank and winning smile ; the sister older, stout, with calm, near-sighted eyes, and evidently deaf. Nice-looking yon would have called them both. We often met in the narrow entry, and I noticed that the brother looked at Irene very intently, from under his apparently downcast eyelids on such occasions. Mrs. Thayer did not " know them to Bpeak to "; they had come the day before we did, and the sister's deafness stood in the way of an acquaintance. One morning, aB we went down to breakfast, I noticed the brother's hat on the hall table, and girlish curiosity led me into the indiscretion of taking it up to see if bis name was inside of it. Sorely — both same and address etared me in the face. John Athlin, of Milton, Mass., my John's name, my cousin, I felt positive, for he had often spoken of him to me. Ah, yes, it was all quite clear to me cow, but I would say nothing, only as time went by, mystify them a little just for the fun of doing so. I swore Irene over to secrecy, and we kept our own council ; only I wrote to John, of course, and told him all about it. I ought to tell you here that before we started from home Irene took off her engagement ring and hid it away in her desk. " I want for once to feel free," she said, " to make believe free," and though it seemed to me to be a little whimsical on her part to talk ■o, as she bad never openly rebelled against the marriage tier parents had planned for her, I promised to speak to no one of her engagement, not even to tell dear Mrs. Tbayer, why the young lady had so much shopping to do. As the days went by I occasionally spoke of John to Irene at the table, loud enough for the other John to hear me. He always seemed absorbed in his thoughts, but one eveniDg bis sister spoke to us. " My brother," she said, " fancied that you are the Miss Forcythe who is engaged to his cousin, Mr. John Athlin, of Milton. When he heard jou mention his name the other day, he wrote to his cousin Carrie, Mr. John Athlin's sister, and she " We all burst into a laugh, for Carrie was my John's sister, of course. After that we became quite intimate. Miss Athlin was a cbarming person, saving the deafness, and just old enough to make a delight ful chaperon for us. Dear Mrs. Tbayer was very content to let her assume the role, for to an elderly lady sight-seeing is generally a bore, and naturally, we wanted " to see everything," while in Philadelphia. I was particularly glad to make her acquaintance, as my John had always spoken of ber as his favorite cousin, so I generally contrived to walk with her, and Irene and the other John walked abetd of us, or behind us. I was so much occupied with my shopping, my new friend, and my letters to and from home, that I paid very little heed to Irene, those leafy June days. She seemed &a happy as a bird, was always ready to go anywhere, and wore her prettiest gowns every day. I often noticed at her neck or in ber belt, flowers that my new friend's brother had given to her, but the idea that they meant anything never came into my head . Miss Athlin, however, it afterward appeared, was more observing ; she must have noticed the growing delight of her John in the lovely girl's society. The young creatures, as I have •irae remembered, were very shy before us, and I often surprised the vflnlom hgbt-hearted Irene in a brown study. I think that we four visited together every spot of interest in the Quaker City, even mouutiog to the roof of Qirard College, where I well remember the care that John Athlin took of Irene, holding on to her slender arm, as if afraid that, having left the earth so far below her, ehe would leave it still further, and fly away from him altogether

into the blue of the sky. There is always a little worship in a young man's first love, I think, and Irene war his first- lore, as I have sine* learned. One night we parted as usual, promising ourselves the pleasure of going to the navy yard the next day, under the escort of the old navy officer, who bad persuaded Mrs. Thayer to join us on that excursion. Irene was unusually silent and abstracted, it seemed to me. She wu a long time undressing, and a long time combing out ber beautiful auburn hair. Then she knelt down to pray, and I thought that I heard a stifled sob ; but I was drifting into dreamland, and I may have been mistaken. When we all met at breakfast, I fancied that Miss Athlin looked almost sternly grave. A letter lay open beside her, and she frequently glanced from it to me, and from me to Irene. We started for the navy yard, however, and were soon walking among the great guns and listening to the chip, chip, chip of the workmen who were busy on the huge skeleton ships, making them seaworthy. It wai a beautiful bright day, and the water sparkled and shimmered in the sunshine. How it all comes back to me as I write I I never knew quite when or how it happened, but Mim Athlin fell behind the rest of us with Irene, while I seemed left to the polite, if somewhat reluctant care of her brother. It went on so all through the m jrning,until we returned borne. Then .glancing at Irene's face as the flew past me to our room, I felt convinced that something painful had taken place. I was going to follow her, when Miss Athlin laid her hand on my arm. It was a soft, dimpled hand, but its pressure was very firm, and I did not dare to resist the entreaty that its grasp conveyed to my mind. " Will you come into my room for a moment 7 she said pleadingly ; her large near-sighted eyes raised with a reproachful wistfulness to mine. " I have something to say to you." I followed her in some bewilderment, my heart throbbing uncomfortably. " Sit down, will you t " She spoke with grave civility. "1 am going away by the next boat for Boston, and I may not have another chance to tell you my side of the story. You must have seen, as I did, that my poor John was becoming infatuated with your little friend. Why did you not tell us that she is engaged to be married 7 I saw no ring on her finger, and she seemed so light-hearted, so childish, so different from a woman whose thoughts are occupied with love, that, until I received this morning a letter from my cousin Carrie, I had no idea of such a thing. It was cruel of you, Miss Forcythe— cruel of you, who are happy in your future prospects, to allow these poor children to wander into such a fool's paradise. A word to me in time might have saved them all this pain. Now there is only one course for ns to pursue. I must tell John the trnth, and we must leave here at once.' I burst into tears. I had growa to love the mild, fair gentle* woman who was sitting in judgment on my selfish carelessness. "They will get over it in time," I sobbed. "They are so young." "John will, no doubt, get over it in time," she answered gently; " but Mb feelings are very deep, and I would — oh, what would 1 not have done to Bpare him this disappointment 1" And there was a quiver in her voice, and tears in those calm, neai -sighted eyes that heretofore had seemed to me so passionless. "He is all that I have, and lam all that he has," she continued, half apologetically. "We have lost all the others. Now, I must go to him, so I will bid you good-bye ; and — and— some day — say to Irene that I forgave her, and that I hope she will be happy." Irene did. not go downstairs again that day— nor did I. Tho next morning at breakfast, two empty seats confronted us, and it took all Irene's pride, and my conscious innocence, to enable ns to look on them with composure. Dear Mrs. Thayer made some wild guesses as to the probable reason of our friends' sudden departure, and joked poor little Irene about her red eyes and pale cheeks. "But it will all come right," chuckled the ignorant old lady. " I never saw in all my life a man more in love. Keep up your hearts, girls ;we will .soon have them back again. Why, 1 remember when Mr. Thayer " But why do I repeat all this foolish nonsense 1 It only turned the knife in my poor Irene's wound. She crept about ia a scared sort of a way ; her face as pale as a sheet, her hands as cold aa ice ; and I remember that she held oa to my dress as we walked together that day, as if I could save her from something ; from herself peihapa. How am Ito tell what happened next. A steamer run into at night. Eight passengers lost. Among them a Mr. and Miss Athlin, supposed to be brother and sister. Oh, the woe of it 1 Hardly out my sight, and gone so far — so far — beyond the reach of onr humanity. At first Irene was stunned ; then followed days of tears and selfreproach ; self-reproach that found an echo in every heart, alas I But by the time that our parents called us home, a deal, dull calm had fallen over our grief, and we resolved to keep silent— silent as the grave. Oh, the deep meaning of that expression to us 1 For what good could come of baring onr hearts to the scrutiny of the world 7 " But some day I will tell John all about it," was my mental reservation. Irene, 1 felt sure, would remain dumb. My poor John mourned the loss of his cousins very sincerely. 1 had t» listen to endless panegyrics on their virtues. Oh, they were, they truly were, most lovely in their lives ; and it seems well to me that in death they were not divided, so dreary must it be to go on that longe3t of all journeys alone. As the summer waned Irene caught a severe old that settled on her lunge. She had not seemed as strong as usual throngh the warm weather ; a trifle thin and pale and rather listless. Her wedding had to be put off, but John and I were married just as the frost tet in. A few days before this great event took place I went to bid her good-bye. She was too ill for us to expect to see her at the church. A racking cough kept ber confined to the house most of the time. She was sitting in her favourite chair by the window, and as soon as shß saw ma coming up the garden path she kissed her hand and

•mi led with all her old brightness. But very frail seemed that little /hand as I held it in mine a few minutes later. We talked about my "plans and my prospecte until it was almost time for me to go, then suddenly she said : •' Mag, if I should never see you again, and if and if " something in her eyes seemed to end the sentence for her, and convey its meaning to my brain. "You must never reproach yourself," she continued very earnestly, and in a stronger voice, " for having kept my secret about my ring and my engagement, you know." She was looking straight at me, with clear honest eyes, but I could not answer her— something choked me. "It has all been for the best," she went on, solemnly and deliberately, as if she waa reciting a lesson learned by heart out of the book of human weakne9s and pain, in the lon=* sleepless nights. "It has all been for the best," she repeated. '• 1 was a very silly little thing before— before— l knew nothing of life. 1 did not even understand myself. One learns a great deal through sorrow, when one has much time to think over things as I have had all these lonely days." I kissed her silently and left the house too moved for words. What does it matter when or how I heard of her death ! It is her living face that comes back to me as the years go on, though for a while her death cast a shadow over my remembrance of her. Gentle, loving, perfected through suffering, she followed those other two into the silent land. May they not have met in that far-off country that sometimes seems so near ? As for me and my John, we are content to remain in this world so long as we can tread it together. I told him the whole story of our visit to Philadelphia not long since, and he— well, he kissed my tears away, silly thing, and in doing so he lifted a great load from my heart. But I never see a young girl who reminds me of Irene without feeling a tug at my heart, and a wistful desire to help her in some way ; and once I met almost her very counterpart, but for a slight difference of colouring, under such peculiar and interesting circumstances, that I cannot refrain from telling the story. lam not superstitious, but it has seemed to me sometimes that God vouchsafed me this special cbance to undo, vicariously, acme of the evil caused by my girliah thoughtlessness and indiscretion. I was sitting in the reception room of a large New York hotel, waiting for a shower to pass by, when my attention was drawn to a slight, young girl, neatly but insufficiently clothed (it was early in a backward spring), who was nervously tying up a parcel that she had just opened, and furtively wiping away with her worn cotton gloves tears that nevertheless trickled slowly down her cheeks. " How like Irene 1" I thought, my heart swelling. " How very like Irene she is !" Just then a pompous servant walked up to her, saying, " Mrs. Smyth is busy, and cannot see you for two or three hour i." " Not for two or three hours? But she told me to come at 10, and its only just ten now I" The servant made no reply and quickly withdrew.bis duty done. vii^t 06 ' 8 voice ' AU mjr Bvm Pa l °y went out to the child ; for a child she seemed to me sitting there, sorrowf nl, irresolute, passing her hands over her eyes, in a bewildered way. Bhe appeared to shrink from my, perhaps, too steady gaze, so, to reassure her, and to break the embarrassing silence, I spoke. " It is yery disagreeable to be kept waiting." "Yes," she answered despondently. '• asd I don't know how I can come back in two hours, I Jive so far off." " But you might wait here." ..r™." 0 ] 11 can I? ' sbe exclaimel, her countenance brigbten'n-*. " Then 1 will, for I must ree this lady." The shower was over, and I got up to go on my way, but before I reached the outer door a longing to see the girl again, and to hear her story, drew me back to the little reception room. She was now sitting by the table, now weeping unrestrainedly ; her hat thrown slightly back, and her hair, of the true saintly colour, shining round her head as the hzht caught it, like a halo. " Tell me what is the matter. I may be able to help you," I said very gently, to as not to startle her. She lifte 1 her large hazel eyes to my face, and unwrapping her 1 ttle parcal, sobbcl " Lcok! It i 9i 9 broken. I am afraid that Mrs. Smvth will not take it. I fell as I got out of the horss car, and when I undid the paper I found it so." She pointed to a crack that divided the examsitely painted tile in two. " Did you paint that ?" I asked. " Yes ; Mrs. Sm ytb ordered it, ard I also ha-i these photographs to colour for her. They are all right ; but I needei the money for the tile to pay my board. I will be turnei out if it is not p ui before the day after to-mcrrow, and what will become of me 1 " The thin nervous hands trembled as they drew the paper ovar the luckless piece of brie a-brac. " Have you do friends to go to ? " "lam ft stranger in New York," she answered sadly. "I have no friends anywhere," she added, with a glance of defiance, though tne ™ice wa 8 p i ea din e . That voice 1 Irene's voice affected me deeply. If. I said, half ashamed of my weak credulity, pmience wnispering that the girl's story wag suspicious, and that &he was, probably, unworthy of help-" if I gave you an order to colour some photographs for me, and advanced you some money now, would it -jfv," ° h> ,* hank jou," B °e ittanupted, gratefully, her face quivering with emotion "You do not know what it would be to me." She shuddered, and drew her scanty black shawl tighter across her chest. For the first time I noticed how hectic was the swiftly varying bloom on her cheeks, how hollow her occasional cough. I , 4 ', W r el1 ' h " e is about what the value of the tile would have been, s I continued, drawing out my porte-monnaie, "and if you will meet me at ten o clock to-morrow mornine at th- Exchange' for ald^^V 29 F^ h aVeDUe ' * wiU *™ *" tt photographs and we may find something more for you to do." But the next morning, though I was faithful to my appointment, and waited two hours for the girl to appear, she did not come. •• An impostor, no doubt," I bad to own to myaelf, and though the recollection of her face and voice still pleaded for her in my hearr, I felt

not a little angry with myself for having yielded to the impulse of the moment. More than a week went by, and I bad almost forgotten the episode in more absorbing interests, when I received a note from Mrs. Ohoate, the noble President of the ' • Exchange." rt I wish that you would come and talk over with me what we can do for the young girl who came to 119 with your card this morning," she wrote. " Her story is a singular one, and I feel deeply interested in her. Illness prevented her from keeping her appointment- with you. When can I see you ? ' ' In the handsome rooms of our President, where many wearyhearted women have found comfort and encouragement, where many plans have been made to succour the hopeless and helpless, I heard the history of Irene's counterpart. A little Southern girl, brought up on a lonely plantation, and taught accomplishments, but little besides. "When her father died she fell under the rule of a stepmother, a woman in every way unfit to bring her up. The Btepmother married again, in the coarse of time, a hard drinker, a gambler, a man of dissolute habits, and out of a home that had become little better than a loathsome gaol, the child escaped, wandering friendless from town to town, teaching painting here, giving a very precarious dancing lesson there ; selling her fancy work when she could, until at last she reached New York, the goal of her dreams, the city of wealth, the place where work and sympathy abounded. Alas J alas 1 poor littla thing, she sank into deeper misery than ever in the great heartless city. " Discouraged, ill, homeless, penniless, she had resolved to drown herself, if turned into the street, when you met her," concluded Mrs. Ohoate. II And now what can we do for her ? " I need not go into the details of Mary Clay's gradual rehabilitation among respectable people. A good home was found for her by the managers of the " Exchange," warm and suitable clothing in abundance, and the best of all earthly blessings, work. She waa very ill for a time — she had gone through so much — but as the months flew by her cheeks filled out, her cough was heard no more, and a happy, busy, little woman flitted from brown stone house to brown stone house, giving lessons for which she was amply remunerated. It was always sorrowful joy for ma to see her. Ah 1 my Irene, my Irene, I thought, who could have dreamed that your thoughtlessly leaving your ring in your deßk, that my indiscreetly looking into a gentleman's hat, would bring about the death of two people — your own demise, and the redemption of a soul as precious in God's eyes as either yours or mine. Indeed we do " see darkly " in this world, so all the more it behoves us to walk on the broad highway of duty, where jwe will be less apt to stumble than in the pleasant by-ways of caprice and fancy.