Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 19.djvu/664

 the higher spheres of government or diplomacy. Myrtle must keep his secret. Nobody else knew it. He could not help making a confidant of her,—a thing he had never done before with any other person as to his plans in life. Perhaps she might watch his career with more interest from her acquaintance with him. He loved to think that there was one woman at least who would be pleased to hear of his success if he succeeded, as with life and health he would,—who would share his disappointment if fate should not favor him.—So he wound and wreathed himself into her thoughts.

It was not very long before Myrtle began to accept the idea that she was the one person in the world whose peculiar duty it was to sympathize with the aspiring young man whose humble beginnings she had the honor of witnessing. And it is not very far from being the solitary confidant, and the single source of inspiration, to the growth of a livelier interest, where a young man and a young woman are in question.

Myrtle was at this time her own mistress as never before. The three young men had access to her as she walked to and from meeting and in her frequent rambles, besides the opportunities Cyprian had of meeting her in his sister's company, and the convenient visits which, in connection with the great lawsuit, Murray Bradshaw could make, without question, at The Poplars.

It was not long before Cyprian perceived that he could never pass a certain boundary of intimacy with Myrtle. Very pleasant and sisterly always she was with him; but she never looked as if she might mean more than she said, and cherished any little spark of sensibility which might be fanned into the flame of love. Cyprian felt this so certainly that he was on the point of telling his grief to Bathsheba, who looked to him as if she would sympathize as heartily with him as his own sister, and whose sympathy would have a certain flavor in it,—something which one cannot find in the heart of the dearest sister that ever lived. But Bathsheba was herself sensitive, and changed color when Cyprian ventured a hint or two in the direction of his thought, so that he never got so far as to unburden his heart to her about Myrtle, whom she admired so sincerely that she could not have helped feeling a great interest in his passion towards her.

As for Gifted Hopkins, the roses that were beginning to bloom fresher and fresher every day in Myrtle's cheeks unfolded themselves more and more freely, to speak metaphorically, in his song. Every week she would receive a delicately tinted note with lines to "Myrtle awaking," or to "Myrtle retiring," (one string of verses a little too Musidora-ish, and which soon found itself in the condition of a cinder, perhaps reduced to that state by spontaneous combustion,) or to "The Flower of the Tropics," or to the "Nymph of the River-side," or other poetical alias, such as bards affect in their sieges of the female heart.

Gifted Hopkins was of a sanguine temperament. As he read and re-read his verses, it certainly seemed to him that they must reach the heart of the angelic being to whom they were addressed. That she was slow in confessing the impression they made upon her, was a favorable sign; so many girls called his poems "sweet pooty," that those charming words, though soothing, no longer stirred him deeply. Myrtle's silence showed that the impression his verses had made was deep. Time would develop her sentiments; they were both young; his position humble as yet; but when he had come famous through the land—O blissful thought!—the bard of Oxbow village would bear a name that any woman would be proud to assume, and the M. H. which her delicate hands had wrought on the kerchiefs she wore would yet perhaps be read, not Myrtle Hazard, but Myrtle Hopkins!