Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 2.djvu/217

 MARCH.

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��seems almost like an evil omen to give her such a dreary, cheerless name. " "Nonsense, my love," returns Mr. Thorpe, "What's in a name?" And so it is settled, and baby March hence- forth becomes an important member of the Thorpe household.

If I were giving a sermon, instead of attempting to write a story, I should here remark that Mrs. Thorpe was of the type of women that many men most desire for a wife — pretty, gentle, submissive, yielding, and for the good of the human race in general. I would urge the fair sex to fashion themselves in an entirely different mould ; and, whether matron or maid, to stand firm and self-reliant in their own true womanhood j for, although these shy, helpless, clinging ways may seem to the masterful lover the very embodi- ment of womanly grace, yet they only tend to make the one selfish and arro- gant, and the other abject and un- womanly. But as such is not my pur- pose, I shall leave all this unsaid, and proceed at once with the story.

Time drags wearily with the heavy- hearted, and all too quickly speeds with the gay. To Mr. Thorpe's quiet home it has brought no sudden trans- formation. The head of the house has gone on in his matter-of-fact way, add- ing, year by year, to his well-filled cof- fers, until he has come to be acknowl- edged in business parlance, "one of the heaviest men of the town," which is quite as true literally. Mrs. Thorpe, the matron, is as charming and pretty as the Mrs. Thorpe of earlier years ; while March has grown from babyhood past childhood into dawning woman- hood, the pet and idol of the home. No clue has ever been given as to her mysterious advent among them ; no trace of the unknown woman who, sol- itary and alone, traversed the deserted streets on that wild March night. In- credulous people have long since ceased to regard this phase of the night's experience. For how could any strange person, and a woman, go in and out among them, without the fact being noted and commented upon by some of the news-mongers. An utter-

��ly impracticable story ! Thus the mat- ter has been satisfactorily settled to their minds. And even Mr. Thorpe, from puzzling over the perplexing question, so long, has been inclined to doubt its reality, and has even allowed himself to think that possibly it might have been a sort of optical illusion ; or, more improbable still, an unreal pres- ence from the shadowy land, supposed to be inhabited by the guardian at- tendants of finite creatures, and condi- tions. But be that as it may, he has somehow during these years fallen a victim to the strange lovableness and fascinating wiles of his adopted daugh- ter ; and has grown fonder of her than he would be willing to acknowledge.

A rare, beautiful creature she cer- tainly has become, with a dusky, richly colored style of beauty quite unknown among the passionless, phlegmatic peo- ple of our sturdy north. A form, slight, childlike, with a peculiar undu- lating grace of movement, a complex- ion brown as the nuts of our own for- ests, yet crimson as the reddest rose ; wavy masses of ebon hair, catching odd gleams in the sunlight, blue-black and purplish like a raven's wing, eyes capa- ble of wonderful transitions, now full of joy, laughter, and sunshine, now flash- ing scorn and defiance, or heavy with midnight gloom. A strange child, full of wild vagaries and incontrolable im- pulses. Mrs. Thorpe could no more understand her nature or check her fierce impetuosity, than she could with her weak hands stay the torrent of the mountain stream, or control the head- long speed of the wind, as it eddies and whirls in its mad dance. And so, unchecked and unrestrained, March has entered upon her regal, imperious womanhood.

Naturally, of course, there are many manly hearts eager to pay hom- age at so fair a shrine ; but Mr. Thorpe with paternal pride, has set his heart on securing an eligible partner for his darling. And so it begins to be ru- mored around town, that Hon. Elwyn Reeves has out-distanced all competi- tors, and is in fact, the betrothed hus- band of the beautiful March. To be

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