A DREAM OF FUTURE DAYS.
against the carpet, " not encourage feeding the orphans of dead soldiers -do you mean that?"
Her clear, dove-like eyes embarrassed me with their steady gaze.
I arose and took out my pocket-book.
"How much shall I give you, Miss Dunbar?"
"What you can afford, sir."
I handed her a fifty-dollar bill. Her eyes gladdened so, they fairly dazzled me.
"Oh, Mr. Trowbridge!" she cried, " I did not expect this. You are so good, so generous!"
She took out a delicate little purse, and crammed it in, then she turned to go.
"Good-by, Mr. Trowbridge!" she said, pausing in the door-way, and holding out her hand. "I thank you very much, indeed; but won't you come down to the fair tomorrow night? Please do, Mr. Trowbridge."
I did not promise her, but I went, nevertheless; and after the fair was over, I attended Jessie home. My old sweetheart, grown into a buxom matron, met me in the hall.
"At last, Chancy," she said, grasping both my hands; "but you've been an unfriendly, old curmudgeon all these years, and we may thank Jessie for luring you out of your den, I suppose. She's won her bet by it, too. You see, the girls were all here, laying plans for the fair, and they got to talking about you ; and young Dr. Snyder offered to bet twenty-five dollars that none of them had the courage to go up to Walnut Hill and ask you for a donation. But Jessie made the venture, and now that you have come out of your seclusion , do be sociable, Chancy, for the sake of our old friendship."
I took her at her word. Almost every evening after that found me at Mr. Dunbar's pleasant home. And one spring night, when the air was sweet with balm, and the moonlight soft and mellow, and the great apple-tree, beneath which we sat, was white with fragrant bloom, I made the same proposal to Jessie that I had made to her mother twenty years before, not on my knees, however, but sitting by her side, with her little hand in mine.
"I loved your mother years ago, Jessie," I said; "but I was a silly boy then. I am a man now, and I love you as no man ever loves but once. Do you think you can be my wife?"
"I think I can, Mr. Trowbridge," she answered, simply; "and I'll do my best to make you a good one. I've thought of you a great deal all my life, and loved you, I believe, even before I ever knew you. Mother used to tell me about you when I was a little girl; and I always thought it was wrong in her to take your poem, and your brooch, and then laugh at you; though, of course, it was right for her to like papa. But I've always felt very sorry for you; it must have been terrible when you went home and found your mother dead. I've got the poem, and the ruby-brooch you gave mother; and I am very glad you love me so much, Mr. Trowbridge. Yes, I'll be your wife, and I'll try to make your life so happy, that you'll never remember the sorrowful past."
So I married the daughter of my old sweetheart; and there she sits in the great rocking-chair, before the blazing wood-fire; and that little thing on her lap is my son and heir, Chancellor Trowbridge, Jr. And in regard to myself, Chancellor Trowbridge, Sr., I am the happiest man that ever the sun shines on.
A DREAM OF FUTURE DAYS.
BY CLARENCE MAY.
I DREAM-I dream of future days,
My soul will wander there,
To gaze upon the blooming hopes,
Devoid of toil and care;
I will not heed the dreamy past,
Nor count the wasted hours,
When sorrow filled the listless cup
Now Hope seems wreathed with flowers.
I dream of fair and angel forms,
And smiling friends I'll meet;
Of angel harps, to music tuned
In harmony, replete,
In those fair fields of endless green,
Those suns that never set,
Those orbs of bright and dimless sheen,
With nothing to regret.
I dream of my prospective home,
And all those sunny hours.
When poesy will teach me sing
'Midst ever-blooming flowers;
And through the mist of gathering years,
A form steals to me now;
And soft and sweet a sister's kiss
Is pressed upon my brow.
No more I'll dream of perished hopes,
Nor many a spoken word
That, lost amid the wreck of time,
Will ne'er again be heard.
No more the ghosts of buried joys
Start up and haunt my gaze;
My soul is fixed on fairer scenes,
And dreams of happier days.
