Alice Wilde. Metta Victoria Fuller Victor

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СКАЧАТЬ hates 'em, and so do I! I know he'd ruther have me. Say yes, do now, that's a good girl."

      "I don't understand you, Ben," said Alice, coldly, trying to pass, for she was troubled and wanted to get away.

      "I'll tell you then," he said, "I want you to marry me, Alice. I've been thinking about it these two years—night and day, night and day."

      "Why, Ben," cried the startled child, "I never thought of it—never! and I can not now. Father will be very angry with you. Let go of my hand; I want to go home."

      "You ain't a little girl any longer, Alice Wilde, and I guess yer father 'll find it out. He may be mad for a spell; but he'll get over it; and when he comes to think of the chances of his dyin' and leavin' yer alone, he'll give his consent. Come, Alice, say yes, do, now?"

      The intense eagerness of his manner made her tremble, from sympathy, but she looked into his blazing eyes firmly, as she replied, "Never! so long as I live, never! And you must not speak of it again, unless you want to be discharged from—"

      "Don't you threaten me, Miss Alice. I ain't the stuff to be threatened. If I'd have said what I've said this day, three weeks ago, you wouldn't have been so mighty cool. Not that I think I'm good enough for ye—there ain't the man livin' that's that; but I'm as good as some as thinks themselves better—and I won't be bluffed off by any broadcloth coat. I've loved you ever since you were a little girl, and fell in the mill-pond onct, and I fished ye out. I've loved ye more years than he's seen ye weeks, and I won't be bluffed off. Jes' so sure as I live, that man shall never marry you, Alice Wilde."

      "He never thought of it; and it hurts me, Ben, to have you speak of it. Let me go now, this instant."

      She pulled her hand out of his, and hurried away, forgetful of the bird he had given her.

      Love, rage, and despair were in the glance he cast after her; but when, a few moments later, as he made his way back toward the mill, he passed Philip Moore, who gave him a pleasant, careless nod, hate—the dangerous hate of envy, jealousy, and ignorance, darkened his swarthy brow.

      Poor Alice, nervous almost to sobbing, pursued her homeward way. She had never thought of marriage except as a Paradise in some far, Arcadian land of dreams which she had fashioned from books and the instincts of her young heart; and now to have the idea thrust upon her by this rude, determined fellow, who doubtless considered himself her equal, shocked her as a bird is shocked and hurt by the rifle's clamor. And if this young man thought himself a fit husband for her, perhaps others thought the same—perhaps her father would wish her to accept him, some time in the far future—perhaps Philip—ah, Philip! how almost glorified he looked to her vision as at that moment he came out of the forest-shadows into the path, his straw-hat in his hand, and the wind tossing his brown hair.

      "Here is the little humming-bird, at last! was it kind of her to fly away by herself on this last afternoon of my stay?"

      How gay his voice, how beaming his smile, while she was so sad! she felt it and grew sadder still. She tried to reply as gayly, but her lip trembled.

      "What's the matter with the little Wilde-rose?" he asked, kindly looking down into the suffused eyes.

      "I've been thinking how very lonely I shall be. My father is going away, too, you know, and I shall have no one but good old Pallas."

      "And that handsome young man I just saw parting from you," he said, mischievously, looking to see her blush and smile.

      "Oh, Mr. Moore, is it possible you think I could care for him?" she asked, with a sudden air of womanly pride which vanished in a deep blush the next instant.

      "Well, I don't know; you are too good for him," he answered, frankly, as if the idea had just occurred to him.

      An expression of pain swept over Alice's face.

      "I know, Mr. Moore, how you must regard me; and I can not blame you for it. I know that I am ignorant—a foolish, ignorant child—that my dress is odd, my manner awkward—that the world, if it should see me, would laugh at me—that my mind is uncultivated—but oh, Mr. Moore, you do not know how eager I am to learn—how hard I should study! I wish my father would send me away to school."

      "That would just spoil your sweet, peculiar charms, little Alice."

      He smoothed her hair soothingly, as he would have done a child's; but something in her tone had put a new thought in his mind; he looked at her earnestly as she blushed beneath this first slight caress which he had ever given her. "Can it be so?" he asked himself; and in his eyes the young girl suddenly took more womanly proportions. "How very—how exquisitely beautiful she is now, with the soul glowing through her face. Shall I ever again see a woman such as this—pure as an infant, loving, devoted, unselfish, and so beautiful?" Another face, haughty, clear-cut, with braids of perfumed black hair, arose before his mental vision, and took place beside this sweet, troubled countenance. One so unmoved, so determined, even in the moment of giving bitter pain—this other so confiding, so shy, so full of every girlish beauty. Philip was touched—almost to saying something which he might afterward regret; but he was a Moore, and he had his pride and his prejudices, stubborn as old Mortimer Moore's, nearly. These hardened his heart against the sentiment he saw trembling through that eloquent countenance.

      "You are but a little girl yet, and will have plenty of chance to grow wise," he continued playfully. "This pretty Wilde-rose 'needs not the foreign aid of ornament.' When I come again, I hope to find her just as she is now—unless she should have become the bride of that stalwart forester."

      "Then you are coming again?" she asked, ignoring the cruel kindness of the latter part of his speech, and thinking only of that dim future possibility of again seeing and hearing him, again being in his presence, no matter how indifferent he might be to her.

      For Alice Wilde, adoring him as no man ever deserved to be adored, still, in her forest simplicity, called not her passion love, nor cherished it from any hope of its being reciprocated. No; she herself considered herself unworthy of the thought of one so much more accomplished, so much wiser than herself. Her's was

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