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LOVE.
the house, to caress, for the last time, a little cosset lamb, of which she had grown very fond, and, feeling rather low and melancholy, she put her arms about the creature's neck, and was shedding some childish, sentimental tears, and murmuring something very silly about ‘‘no one miesing her when she was gone, except poor, little cosset,” when hearing a slight noize she looked up, and eaw Nathan, standing with bis arms folded, looking at her.
Nellie would have been no true-henrted woman, if rage had not instantly filled her soul at the idca of having her sentimentalizing scrutinized, and perhaps understood ; so, true to this feminine instinct, she turned sharply on the intrader,
“Well, Mr. Nathan, I don’t know what you want, spying round that way!” Having made which vixinish speech, she seemed ready to burat into tears.
“I don’t know why you are angry with me, Nellie,” said Natban, sadly, as he drew nearer, ‘you never had less cause; for if you are grieved at parting with your poor, little, pet lamb, think how I must feel at losing mine, forever.”
Nellie looked up in surprise.
“Of course you don’t understand me,” con- tinued he, ‘‘and it’s nonsense to telk about it, but often when I have seen you fondling that little creature, I have thought of my name-sake im the Scriptures, and how, like him, I bad too my one little ewe lamb, though hidden deep in my secret heart. Oh, Nellie, 1 know well enongh that you have never thought of me. I have never dreamed of any return—but it has been such a happiness to me simply to love you—it has been like the opening of a new world to me— it has been gazing into heaven; and to morrow I must return to earth!”
“Oh, Nathan, you do not, you cannot possibly love me,” cried Nellie, all of a tremble, ‘‘you have never said anything to me—I thought yon hated me—I cannot believe it—I cannot——”
“There is no need you should,” ssid Nathan, “(since that would not alter the case.”
“I wish you would not take things for granted so,” said Nellie, pettishly. ‘* Whether it would alter the case or not, I should like to be convinced.”
Whether the country lover would have been able to convince her, to her entire satisfaction, was not proved, at that time; for just as he had got to fourthly in the argument, Miss Priscilla appearci at the fence, peering curiously at them through the twilight, and exclaiming,
“Dear me, what can you two be doing out there in the dark, and on the wet grassf You'll catch the rheumatism, both of you.”
“Mr. Nathan is trying to convince me he likes lambs,” replied Nellie, demarely, ‘and I can’t believe him.”
‘Well, you hadn’t ought to, dear, he never touchea lamb when he can get beef.”
Nellie laughed, and stooped to give her pet one last caress, before following Miss Priacilla to the house. On the way thither, Nathan con- tinued his arguments in an under-tone; while Miss Priscilln held forth on the absurdity of choosing such a time and place to discass the merits of beef and mutton, and announcing sharply, that if they ‘‘carried on” that way, they would not live long to eat either.
What Nathan’s final arguments were, and when he found time to state them, I never ascertained; but that Nellie heard them, and found them sound, is probable; for soon after her return home, Nathan astounded his father and family by taking a trip to Boston: and scor after that the engagement between the young people was generally known. Of course every body was taken by surprise at Nellie’s choice, and no one more so than her father, at first; but being greatly pleased with the unassuming, straightforward manners of bis son-in-law that hoped-to-be, and finding in him all the moral requisites for making a woman happy, he went to work like a man of sense and emoothed the way to matrimony by the donation of a fine farm; where, in course of time, Nellie, the flirt, was gradually transformed into one of the sweetest and loveliest of wivea and mothers. She declares herself happy to her heart's con- tent, and almost the only tears that have visited her eyes, since her marriage, have been those that rise there, when she says, with a voice trem- bling with tender -passion, ‘Nobody but myself knows how good and noble Nathan is!”
LOVE FROM
THE -
GERMAN.
No fire or coal,
So fiercely glows,
As secret love,
Which no one knows.
No rose, no pink,
Can bloom so sweet,
As when two souls,
Together meet.
Before my heart,
Your mirror set,
And you shall see
Love can’t forget.
G. W. A.
