Page:New Peterson magazine 1859 Vol. XXXV.pdf/236

 LYDIA’S HUSBAND.

BY FRANK LEK BENEDICT.

It wib the night before Lydia Jameson’s wed¬ ding day, and she sat alone in the little chamber which had so long been the sanctuary of her girl¬ ish dreams and fanoies. She was leaning one hand upon the window-sill, looking out into the summer night, very calm and still, though the moonlight showed her cheek pale with the vary¬ ing emotions which troubled her heart, and her eyes had caught a tremulous glitter unlike their usual repose.

Lydia was not beautiful—I arm sorry for it, but she was not—still, no one could have called her plain, and to those who knew her well she was always lovely. Her gentle, reserved man¬ ner betokened a quiet, methodical mind, and Lydia’s nearest friends seldom caught sight of the rapid tide of feelings which flowed beneath that calm exterior. Her schoolmates had com¬ plained that she was “unromanticand when, afterward, they met her in society, quiet as ever, while they had exchanged the harmless folly of school-girl romance for the sentimental¬ ism taught during a course of French novels and a foreign tour, they shook their heads sadly and decided that “she had no soul.”

Lydia had not been abroad. She had never read George Sand, nor been introduced to Alphonse Karr. While her formed companions had enjoyed the charms of such delightful so¬ ciety and literature, been embraced in the polka by half tbe ruined roues of Florence, and acquired “manner” from the titled ladies who frequent the same haunts, poor Lydia had been quietly watching over an invalid aunt, and pursuing a course of study which the aforesaid young females would have pronounced shockingly slow.

No, Lydia Jameson was net romantic; she was perfectly unconscious of possessing an inner nature, and never for a moment dreamed that she was unappreciated. If there were times when those vague yearnings, which every intel¬ lectual nature must feel, stole over her, she strove to forget them in useful occupation rather than to render herself wretched by indulging feelings, which, when restrained, form no unplea¬ sant undercurrent to the human mind, but once allowed a mastery, secure the unhappiness of tbmr possessor and all within the sphere of her influence.

Yet, with all, Lydia Jameson was a wild, en- s thusiastic dreamer, but hers were not the aim- less reveries of youthful folly—they had taken a i high and noble aim—she was an author. Even to her dearest relative Lydia had never confided her secret; and no one about her for an instant suspected it, or thought of attributing to her an anonymous novel, which, only a few months be- i fore, had attracted the attention of the whole literary world.

Now Lydia was to be married, and love, with her, had not been a passion that must inevitably be consumed from its own intensity, but a deep

and lasting sentiment whioh had so blended with her life that it had become a portion of existence itself.

s Every one marveled that Guy Havens, an enthusiastic, impulsive young artist, should have chosen a woman seemingly so unlike himself.

Perhaps it was that very difference which first i attracted him to Lydia, and he unconsciously felt a want of some strong, self-reliant nature upon

[ which to lean; for, with all his talent and enthu¬ siasm, Guy needed to ontlive a thousand fickle¬ nesses and fancies before he would make a proper use of the gifte heaven ha!<i given him, or the full powers of his nature would develop themselves. He was as ignorant of all the prac- tical affairs of life as even a man of genius can well be, and, like the rest of Lydia’s friends, was s occasionally slightly horrified by her plain, com- mon-sense view of duty to oneself and the world. Of all these things was Lydia thinking, as she sat at her open window; and if a fear of Guy’s stability and strength of purpose came across % her, she felt in her own firm, self-centred cha- l racter the power to aid and strengthen him in his faltering course.

The night passed, and Lydia's bridal day came on, the fairest June morning that one s could desire, and amid its brightness those two young beings took the solemn vows which neither estrangement, hate, nor the wicked mockery of human law can ever annul, j A week after, they settled down in the little cottage where they bad decided to pass the sum- mer months. It was a bird’s-nest of a spot—a tiny house nestled in among the curviugs of the East river, surrounded by trees and so overgrown

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