WHAT CAME OF PAUL'S WOOING.

OFTENER than we think, even while a man sincerely loves a woman, if he finds himself bound to her by an irrevocable vow, it chafes him like a fetter, and he instinctively begins to lament his lost liberty-at first, perhaps, almost unconsciously, and only while he finds himself restrained and held back by a moral obligation from some old pastime or pleasure, in which, until now, he has always felt perfect freedom to indulge. For Paul Mallane to come to a sudden consciousness that he had no longer a right to flirt with every woman who would flirt with him, was, indeed, a new sensation. To do him justice, through the entire winter he had no desire to do so. He had never been so thoroughly and honorably busy as he was now. His graduation from the law-school reflected great credit upon himself and his friends. He was just about entering a law-firm, which offered him the opportunity of complete success in his profession. He was going to pay his debts. He was going to be married to the only girl he had ever loved. He was going to make his own home without any body's assistance. He had never felt himself to be so much of a man, and he never had been so much of a man before. He hung Eirene's picture over the table where he sat at work, and, when he felt any of his old lawless impulses stirring him, any temptation from within or without, he looked at that face, and they all died. September, that divine September of pure love, came back; he breathed again in her presence; he saw the look in her eyes, he felt the touch of her hand; he was with her once more; and, being with her and loving her as he did, he resolutely turned from the world of pleasure in which he had so

long lived, sat down, and went on with his work. He took an immense amount of credit to himself for all this. Just now, nobody admired Paul so much as Paul admired himself. He felt sure that he was making tremendous sacrifices for the sake of his love, and felt proud of himself beyond expression to think that he, Paul Mallane, was able to do it. In writing to Eirene, he took pains to impress faithfully upon her mind the great sacrifice that he made and the untold temptation which he resisted for her sake. He thought it would increase the value of his love, the more she realized the innumerable benefits which he relinquished on its behalf. Eirene, in the crowded shop and in Seth Goodlove's bare little chamber, did marvel more and more that such a transcendent gift should have come to her. Every letter that she received from Paul made it seem more wonderful and more enchanting that such a god could stoop to her lowly estate, to love her! But when, at Christmas, Paul came up to Busyville, and, with the certain knowledge that his mother was watching him from the window, knocked deliberately at Seth Goodlove's door, and spent at least two hours visiting with Eirene in the best Goodlove" front room," with the smoke perversely blowing out of the "dummy

"stove till it nearly extinguished their four eyes; and when, with the eyes of Busyville fixed upon him, he escorted Eirene to church in open day, Paul's admiration of himself reached its climax. There might be more awful tests to a man's love, but they were unknown to Paul Mallane. The latter sight-that of Paul Mallane escorting a shop-girl to church-drove the mind of Busyville wild. The maidens of the mansion-houses regarded it as a per

sonal injury, if not an insult. The maidens of the shops, knowing that no mortal power could induce him to escort one of them, regarded it as a base action that he should walk to church with Eirene Vale. "That was the reason, was it, that she never went with shop-people, and spent her time studyin'? She intended to catch the boss' son-the minx!"

A deep distrust of Paul Mallane pervaded the Busyville mind. It had contemplated and pronounced upon his flirtations since he was a boy in the Busyville Academy. Hitherto it had known them to be of a very unstable, if not doubtful, character; and it naturally pronounced that this one, of all others, could come to no good.

Deep was Eirene's distress, on entering the factory on Monday morning, to meet lifted shoulders, averted eyes, and scornful glances, from those with whom she had always been used to exchange daily courtesies. All day she was made the subject of mysterious looks and whisperings; the air was full of distrust and mystery; and before night, without knowing wherefore, she felt that she was being treated like a culprit. As for Tilda Stade, awful was her silence. Nothing could be more awful, except the silence of Tabitha Mallane; for, the moment that she witnessed Paul knock at Seth Goodlove's door, she resolved to be silent, and in silence to execute a strategic movement, in a small way, worthy of Napoleon. In that moment Aunt Comfort's legacy was consecrated to the annihilation of the girl across the street; the vegetable garden was sacrificed, and the white house painted tea-green.

If Paul's ardor and steadfastness of devotion suffered any diminution after his return to Boston, he was not conscious of it. To be sure, there was a difference and he felt it-between lovemaking beside a lovely river on a soft September day, and love-making in a small room filled with the smell of soup, of soap-suds, and of smoke. There was a charm in walking with Eirene along the grassy road, amid the

secluded hills, which he missed walking with her on the Busyville street, with all Busyville staring at him. But Eirene was no less Eirene because of the Busyville eye and a smoky "dummy." The enchantment of that last September had not yet faded so far but that he saw it and felt it, even through the Goodlove smells and smoke. He looked at Eirene's picture, and was comforted.

But a little more opposition would have been stimulating. He had been used to being opposed, and then doing as he pleased. It had a depressing effect on him to be let alone. There was nothing that he missed more than the opposition of his mother.

"If mother would only go on as she begun, what a zest it would give a fellow to take his own way!" he said.

Then, as Spring came on, after a really hard winter's work, he began to want "a little variety "— -a little of the exhilaration of comradeship that he used to feel when he and his chums went off for a "high old time." If they had only come to ask him, he would not have found it difficult to have said "No" on every necessary occasion; but he wanted at least the pleasure of refusing. It piqued him, not to be invited. His self-admiration was no longer a sufficing compensation for self-denial, much less for neglect. That was indeed a new state of affairs, when Paul Mallane was neglected or forgotten by his comrades. The truth was, they had been refused so often during the winter, that they had grown tired of coming.

"Let him alone, boys, for a while," said Dick Prescott. "Just leave him to love and to law, and, if he finds himself left alone to support one by the other, he'll be glad enough to forsake both. But not if you oppose him. Oppose him, and he'll hang to both with a death-grasp. I can tell you, Prince Mallane is the last fellow on earth to submit to being left out. Let him alone, and you'll see how soon he'll get tired of it."

If Dick Prescott's words had been

false-if Paul could have gone on with the same perseverance with which he began-he and Eirene would have been married; they would have "lived happy ever afterwards," and this story would never have been written.

Alas for love, when the mind begins to assure the heart that it is unchanged -that it is as fresh, as fervent, as absolute, and as all-sufficing, as it used to be! This very assurance is born of a doubt. The all-satisfying love can neither be questioned nor assured; it is sufficient unto itself and unto all things. Perhaps it was not Paul's fault that his mind was facile and mercurial.

"I love you, little girl, just the same as ever. I never loved you better than I do this moment," he said, looking at her picture. "I am going to spend my life with you, and, when you are my wife, I am sure I shall never feel the want of any other company. But why should I make a martyr of myself so long before?"

This would have been far from a dangerous question for a man of a more equable temperament to have asked; but when Paul put it, from the depths of a restless mind, he had no consciousness whatever that the very law of his moods was in extremes; that the blessed medium of consistency was something that he rarely touched, and never maintained.

As, in the winter, he had secluded himself from healthy companionship in an altogether unnecessary manner, and prided himself on so doing to a very unreasonable degree, now, in the restlessness of reaction, he was ready to rush to an opposite extreme, and justify himself for so doing in an equally unreasonable degree.

He was in just this state, really mentally tired with new and hard work, and personally tired of being left to himself, and anxious for the fresh excitement so indispensable to such a temperament, when his mother appeared at Cambridge.

To this moment, in the utterly new and exquisite consciousness of being loyal to one woman, and this woman

his promised wife, Paul had given Miss Isabella Prescott to understand, by his manner, that he was preoccupied ; whether with law or with love, he left for her to decide; but, whatever her decision, that it was perfectly useless for her to make further coquettish advances. His cool indifference piqued her till she hated him. In the privacy of her own room she indulged in all sorts of feminine rages on his behalf. She stamped her feet and ground her teeth, and, one night, after a party, frightened Dick nearly out of his wits by taking laudanum enough to make her sick, and by declaring, between her spasms, that she "wanted to die-that she would die; or, if she couldn't, that she would live only to punish him for snubbing her, and for sitting in a corner all the evening with that old Helena Maynard."

After Mrs. Mallane's visit to Marlboro Hill, Paul drifted slowly and insensibly back towards his old relations with the Prescotts. If their visit to Busyville had not been a settled thing, it would have been different; but, this anticipated, it was a perpetual reminder, and a most fruitful source of communica

tion. Mrs. Mallaue was continually sending messages to Bella by Paul, which, of course, involved a visit to Marlboro. Then, Bella had as many to send back; and, as Paul knew it, he would often ride over after tea, just to mention that "he was going to write," and "had she any word to send to mother?" Paul understood his mother's whole game perfectly. He could not be enlightened as to what the metamorphosed house and the Prescott visit both meant. There was a keen excitement in it. It was like a play at the theatre; and, as it was only a play, Paul enjoyed the exhilaration of being the hero, with the power to bring it to a conclusion to suit his own pleasure.

Under these circumstances, it came to pass that he went oftener and stayed later and later at Marlboro Hill. Why was it that, when he returned to his room late at night, the soft eyes looking down upon him from the wall

He

seemed to be full of tears? Why was it that he began to justify himself to that gentle face?-to declare to it that he loved it the same as ever, and loved it alone?-that, in his heart, all he wanted was the power to flee with it to the end of the earth? Nobody had accused him of other desires or intentions, yet it seemed to reproach him more and more, until he felt sometimes that he must turn and run from it. was conscious that a spell was cast around him. Now that he knew what love was, he knew that it was not love; yet it was no less a spell. There was fascination in the fact that Isabella Prescott had fallen in love with him. "Poor girl, I pity her!" he said to himself. "So young, with so much to live for, with such opportunities for choice in marriage, to think that she should turn from all, to really care for me! Dear little Belle! I did not think her capable of caring so much for any

one.

She never showed any signs of it before; and if she should never see any one else that she could love so well, if she should never marry on my account, I should feel as if I had been the cause of destroying her happiness. Well, I'll make all the amends to her that I can." He was so assiduous in making amends, and withal felt so many selfreproaches for being quite so ardent in this direction, that at last he came to glance at the picture on the wall with an attempt at reproach. "If I had not been so unfortunate as to have loved you," he said, "I might have married naturally and happily in my own sphere. If it were not for you, poor Belle would not now be so miserable; for, if I did not love you (and I do), I could care considerably for her; she is certainly attractive."

At this distance from Eirene, it made him feel more comfortable, some way, to think that she had marred Bella's life, and, however unwittingly, was the cause of her unhappiness. As that was the case, and he loved Eirene and did not love Bella, he could and should be all the more tenderly kind to her, in consideration of the affection which she

lavished upon him. The supreme September of love faded to a dream. The summer of Marlboro was an alluring reality. The stars above its park, the moonlight on its lake, its cool, luxurious halls, and their drooping mistress, pallid and lovely in the moonlight, were all of the present, and, with all the power of the present, enchained his imagination and his senses.

Potent, also, was the force of contrast. Hillside-poor, shabby Hillside, with its unfortunate inmates-how did it look, compared with Marlboro Hill?

"Beautiful June! Was there ever such a June!" said Eirene. Busyville emerged from the cold rains of a Massachusetts May a transfigured Busyville. The great elms stretched their wide arms and covered with greenery the staring sharpness and whiteness of its houses; they wove cool roofs of shadow above the village-streets; they joined the willows in the meadow along the river's side, and made a perfect embowered arcade of Lover's Walk. Almost every village has its Lover's Walk. This of Busyville was the only perfect thing in it. In this gossiping town, strange to say, it was without reproach; probably because the villagefolk were too prosaic to people it with ghosts and tragedies. It was a decorous and friendly Lover's Walk, which divided its delicious shade with the young academicians who walked there studying their lessons, with youths and maidens who walked there whispering love, and with bands of shouting children who rushed through it, "going aberrying" the nearest way. Yet, what stories it might have told, this little grass-bordered path, running in and out among the elms and willows, beginning with a village-street, and ending where the river ran dark and deep and alone! It must be confessed that, in this month of June, Eirene neglected the study of French. It is true, she took her "Corinne" with her, and, as she wandered on, always attempted to translate it. But, with her, knowledge has ceased to be the supreme power; and as to the story, what was the ro

mance in the book compared with the romance in her pocket, shut within the perfumed folds of that marvellous letter? What were Oswald and Lucy, or the incomparable Corinne, while Paul lived, and loved her, and wrote her letters, and was coming in August! Not much. She always began her walk studying; she always ended it reading for the hundredth time, very likely, that letter. What a letter it was! Written anew every day, its burden never changed. It was ardent, passionate, and tender, with the ardor, passion, and tenderness of a young man's first, absorbing love. It had but one object-that, to make her realize how infinitely dear to him she was. He described the life of the city-the drawing-rooms of Beacon-street and of Marlboro Hill-the gay beauties who assembled there-till they all appeared in panorama before her eyes; but it was only that he might declare, "Amid them all, I think only of you. Everywhere I am alone, because you are not here." With this letter in her pocket, its words graven in her heart, Eirene would return to the little chamber, and she no longer saw that it was low, or dusty, or hot. She no longer spent her evenings here, as she had done last summer. She knew nothing of the path by the river-side then. It was Paul who had told her of it as a pleasant retreat-one of his own from boyhood. Of course, he did not think it necessary to add, that he had carried on more flirtations in this path, told more pretty falsehoods in it, than any other young man in Busyville. It was very soothing to Eirene to take refuge under the softly-murmuring trees from Tilda Stade's reproving face; for, face; for, though she left Eirene alone in speech, with many a glance and groan she said, "You are lost-hopelessly, eternally lost." This was not a very enlivening assurance to have flung perpetually in one's face. Thus, what wonder that Eirene, beside the river, took refuge in "Corinne" and her letter? Since he had extinguished her at the CampMeeting, Tilda had never mentioned

Paul's name; but whenever she saw a letter-and she took pains to see one as often as possible, by rushing to the Post-Office and bringing it to Eirene with her own hand-she groaned. By this groan she informed Eirene that she understood the exact state of affairs, and had in no wise changed her opinion. Eirene's portfolio lying within reach one day, as Tilda sat alone, she opened it and took from it a letter of Paul's, and read it from beginning to end. Her conscience pricking her during the process, she exclaimed, "I do it for her good. Unless I know her exact case, how can I befriend her in the end? I shall never tell any body what I know. It's the same as if it were buried. Marry her? Hum! I think I see him!" Then Tilda kneeled down, and fervently prayed the Lord to forgive her if she had erred in reading the letter, for He knew that she did it for Eirene's good!

In absence there is no barometer of love like a letter; it inevitably bears within it something of the unconscious atmosphere of its writer-one sure to be felt by the heart to whom it is addressed, although it may not be understood.

July came, and Eirene began to wonder why she felt as if she must burst into tears when she had finished reading one of Paul's letters. They were still full of protestations of love, but these were no longer coupled with bright prospects of the future. stead, there were constant allusions to their unfortunate destiny.

In

Two months before, how bright and brave these letters had been! In them Paul had declared himself strong enough to conquer any fate for her dear sake; but now, Eirene was filled with a vague apprehension, without knowing wherefore. Then her loving heart travelled back to the last September, and tried to assure her that August, the dear August so near at hand, would set every thing right, and bring back once more the enchantment of life. Yet, in spite of youth and hope and love, her heart misgave her sometimes, when she looked