Page:New Peterson magazine 1859 Vol. XXXV.pdf/54

 WHAT ANNE DALAND DID.

55

Sunday-School class. In the bright, golden days of October, when the air is so delicious that it seems almost a sin to stay in-doors, they took long walks together, and had sometimes long and earnest conversations, but they never talked of love.

It was a charming winter’s day. Anne sat alone with her sewing, by the window in their little sitting-room opening with glass doors into the parlor. Presently there was a ring at the door. Anne inclined her head a moment to listen to the voices in the hall. A smile flitted across her face, and she took up her work again.

“I may come in here, Miss Anne, mayn’t I?” said Dr. Morris, in his clear, pleasant tone, appearing at the glass doors, the servant having showed him into the parlor.

“Certainly, I give you possession,” replied Anne, in a cordial tone, rising, and giving him her hand. “And I will go on with my sewing, while you may be as comfortable and lazy as you ehoo?e in that arm-chair.”

There was a charming air of comfort and coziness about the little room, with its bright Are in the grate, Anne’s Maltese kitten asleep in front of it, and the little table drawn up to the window, with its hooks and work-basket, and a Parian vase with geraniums in it. Anne’s figure completed the picture, and gave its chief charm as she sat by the table, her head bent slightly forward over her sewing, her smooth, brown hair, the soft color in her cheek, the lace round her white throat, the soft folds of her blue dress, from beneath which peeped a dainty slipper, all looking so sweet and womanly. There is no doubt Walter Morris thought so to himself, as he drew up the big arm-chair, and took possession of it.

Conversation went on smoothly as usual, for a time, then came an awkward pause. The young man’s eyes were fixed earnestly on her face, and Anne felt embarrassed, and began looking for something in her work-basket. Among other things, she came across a kid glove, and took it out, saying,

“That doesn’t belong in here.”

Walter took np the glove, which was hers, looked at it a moment, then laid it on the table again.

“I believe it’s a universal custom with gentlemen to have all sorts of keepsakes and souvenirs of their lady friends. I have but one, Miss Anne, and that is a little kid glove which I found once. I treasure that because I love with my whole heart, as I never thought I could love any woman, the one whom it belongs to,” and his voice trembled with feeling. He spoke with an almost passionate ardor of manner that Anne had never seen in him before. A sharp, sudden thrill of surprise and pain went all through her at this unexpected confession of his love for another, it seemed for a moment as though her heart stopped beating. But she had a woman’s pride, and though the sudden rush of feeling, and the strong effort for self-command made her paler, she answered, almost playfully, but without raising her eyes from her sewing: “Like the prince in ‘Cinderella,’ who found the slipper in the ball-room, you vowed, I suppose, that the owner of that glove should be yours.”

“I found my treasure in a very different place from a ball-room, Miss Anne. It. was on the rough floor of an old garret, where on a ragged bed a dying man lay, whom the one who dropped my glove there, had been to as an angel of mercy, and had cheered with the hope of heaven. Do you wonder that I took up the little glove, and kissed it almost reverently, and have treasured it ever since?”

Anne looked up quickly at him, her face flushing crimson.

“There it is,” he said, laying a little, brown kid glove in her lap. “If you know the one who lost it, tell her that nothing in the wide world could make me so happy, as to call the little hand that once wore it mine!”

Anne took it up. It was hers. She held it for a moment in fingers that were trembling, her eyes growing dim with tears. Walter was watching her breathlessly. Then, still holding the glove, she laid her hand in his.

Two years have passed. We will draw away the curtains from the windows, whence streams such a cheerful light into the darkness of the street, and look into the pleasant parlor. By the centre-table under the brightly-lighted chandelier sits Walter Morris, having just laid down the hook he was reading out aloud, to hold a skein of silk for his young wife, (Anne Daland that was, they have been married a year and a half) who, as she winds it, is talking with animation all the while, though stopping now and then when she comes to a snarl.

“Cousin Mary says in her letter, Walter, that I mustn’t let happiness make me selfish.”

Her husband looks at her with a quiet smile, but there is a depth of tenderness in it. “I only wish you were a little more selfish. I was thinking just now that you looked tired—what have you been doing today?”

“I went this morning to Judge Stuart’s and staid a good while with Clara, she feels her brother’s sudden death so much, poor girl! Then this afternoon to our Sunday-School, where we