Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 1.djvu/343

 AN APRIL NIGHT.

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��trials, but the sun has broken through the clouds of sorrow that surrounded you, and I trust its rays will hereafter shine with undiramed splendor."

Clara Corinth had been one among the audience that night, but the years that brought Eugene and Mary from misery to happiness, had done just the reverse for her, and she was reduced to poverty even greater than that which Eugene had once known. Bitter, scalding tears had rolled down her cheeks when he had spoken of the fair, jewelled hand from which he had taken his first glass of wine, for she knew whose hand he re- ferred to. From that hour she seemed changed. Hitherto she had borne the trials of adversity with a fretfulness that had been almost unendurable to her par-

��ents, but when, one year later, she stood with Eugene before the altar and was made his for life, the fair face, so beauti- ful in the days of her arrogance and pride, was ten-fold more lovely now iu its softened, tender radiance. True to the one love of his life, Eugene had sought her when he learned of her mis- fortunes, and when he saw how gentle and womanly she had become, he once more asked her to be his wife. She is no longer the proud, heartless belle of soci- ety, but the gentle, loving wife, refined by the trials of adversity, worthy of her husband's deepest love. The love of Eu- gene and Mary is still undimmed, and the passing years bring naught but the purest happiness to Mary, thus making still greater her rich reward.

��AN APBIL NIGHT.

��BY LAURA GARLAND CARR.

With a steady, rythmic beat,

Like a thousand fairy feet, Prancing, dancing all in time, upon the roof,

Through the livelong April night,

While the stars were out of sight, Fell the raindrops, keeping slumbers all aloof.

I could hear the jolly rout

As they rushed adown the spout.

Then made oft' with noisy splutter to the drain ; While no moment, overhead, Ceased that tinkling, airy tread,

In the coming and the going of the rain.

��With what zest the merry crew Drummed a rollocking tattoo

On the old tin pan the boys had left in play; Striving each, with tiny might To dispel the gloom of night.

Driving visions of the midnight far away.

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