Four Poems


[104] Ante Bellum and The Gem of the Lake

“Thank you, dear auntie! For the sake of my friends I should like to have succeeded, but I am not at all disappointed, as I felt certain beforehand that my confidence would desert me; and when we came upon the stage, and I found so many eyes turned toward us, I felt dizzy, and thought that I should faint, although I tried, as Charlie had told me, ‘to screw my courage to the sticking point.’ At first I was scarcely conscious of the sound that issued from my lips; still, if I had been left alone, perhaps I would have recovered myself; but Julia

Eleanor, who could see Julia plainly, and whose companion was almost hidden from her view by intervening figures, thought, of course, that manly form could belong to none other than Egbert, the husband; he alone should dare to look thus upon the wedded Julia. “Yes; it is he,” murmured her beating heart, with accelerated pulsations. How benumbed became her limbs, how her brain whirled! But Eleanor was mistaken. It was not the Rev. Egbert Cropper who now sat beside the brilliant Julia! Who then could be journeying with his wife? Ye pitying angels! it was the young physician, Le Fevre. Misguided, deluded, miserable Julia

[109] The Way of the World and Robert Severne

It was not possible that men so prominent as Eugene and Dr. Lynch could wholly avoid each other, or that Dick could entirely escape the presence of his intended murderer. They met in public places—in the church, in town meeting, in the library, in the streets, and not unfrequently at the social gatherings of the two villages. They bowed to each other; they even spoke upon indifferent topics when compelled to do so, and it was many weeks before the people discovered that the doctor had ceased to visit Pine Hill. The sufferer had the tact to explain everything in a plausible manner. He had given up Julia

Well, sir, you see while Brother Jenkins was a preachin’ I was lookin’ around, not but what I was listenin’, too, and learnin’ every blessed word; and I looked in the poor thing’s trunks and closets, because, you know, sir, says I to myself, ‘Maybe there might be somethin’ as would tell who she was,’ but I only found a few pictures and two or three books, and such like. And I was beginnin’ to despair, when all at once it struck me all of a heap-like that I knew that room; and when I came to think about it I remembered that it was the very one Julia

[137] Hortense and Cameron Hall

I was aroused from the soothing effect of his voice and words, by the grating noise of approaching wheels on the carriage drive. Glancing from the window, I saw a strange face—a woman’s face—of a ghostly pallor—bent earnestly toward the house. It passed quickly, and soon after there was a slight silken rustling at the half open door. A lady entered, and advanced toward us as the master stood with his back to the door, and neither saw nor heard her, until she approached near enough to lay her hand upon his shoulder. He started, as if stung by that light touch—turned—and confronted the woman. For the space of a second, utter stagnation of the faculties seemed to be the result of their mutual gaze. Then a simultaneous ejaculation of “Molina!” “Julia

With a piercing shriek of agony that absolutely stilled Julia’s heart, Eva sank back upon the bed in wild delirium. The sudden shock had been too much for her shattered nerves, and scream followed scream, until they all wondered how her exhausted frame could bear such intense excitement. She was perfectly ungovernable, and when, at last, she became quiet from sheer exhaustion, there was a wild, unnatural gleam of her eye, so different from its usual soft expression, that Julia feared that her reason was hopelessly gone. Her whole face was distorted, and she tore out her hair by handfuls and strewed the floor with her long, beautiful curls. She heeded not father or sister or Uncle John. Indeed, she did not seem to recognize any of them. Grace alone could soothe and quiet her; and Julia

[140] Bessie and Raymond and Cupid’s Album

On that evening, true to his promise to see Bessie, Charlie called upon her, in company with Minnie and Frederic Sedgwick and his wife. They found her alone. She sat in the parlor, expecting Raymond every moment. Bessie welcomed her friends, yet it would be too much to say that she welcomed them cordially and sincerely, although she would undoubtedly have done so had she not felt their presence a rebuke to her weak selfishness. She had heard that both Frederic and Charles had enlisted, with the sanction of those dearest to them, and she dreaded hearing them utter a word in regard to the subject. Charles knew her feelings, and Frederic supposed she was somewhat opposed to Raymond’s becoming a soldier, yet did not dream that she could express sentiments in sincerity, such as she had expressed to Julia

“It must have been a picture to look upon, Julia, in her brilliant brunette beauty, with her long, waving hair, black as the raven’s wing, and most beautiful in its graceful disorder, and her faultless figure robed in soft folds of bright scarlet oil chintz, a dress the chieftain himself had prepared for her, and the priest in his black cossack and rosary kneeling beside her. ‘Child,’ said he, ‘would you witness another frightful human sacrifice, another feast of the flesh and blood of your own dear friends, then refuse longer to partake of this food. You may not value your life as you do your virgin innocence; but the lives of others—the lives of fathers and mothers are in your hands. Can you have heard their helpless bairns calling to you to spare their parents? You relent, Julia

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