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��MARCH.
��sure, he is her senior by many years, but he comes from a long line of aris- tocratic ancestors, and has added to his proud name a princely fortune, as his solid, elegant home, away upon the hill, frowning in its imposing stateliness upon its humbler, less aspiring neigh- bors, attests.
"A very good match indeed, consid- ering her mysterious and somewhat doubtful parentage, a remarkable chef- d'oeuvre of fortune for her ;" say anx- ious mammas and disappointed maidens, Mr. Thorpe is pre-eminently satisfied, and if March herself shows no gratifica- tion in regard to her good fortune, it is to be attributed to her peculiar disposi- tion, at times so reticent and reserved. Thus Mr. Thorpe quiets any scruples he may have entertained as he remem- bers how listlessly and wearily March replied, when he had mentioned Mr. Reeves' proposal, and dwelt warmly up- on the happiness in store for her as his wife. ' " It shall be as you wish, papa, you may, if you desire it, give Mr. Reeves a favorable answer when he calls." But of course she was happy ; any sensible person would be with such a future in anticipation.
All are therefore quite unprepared for the announcement that Mrs. Thorpe with ashen face, and broken, quivering voice, first communicates to her hus- band, that the servants quickly catch up and carry into the streets ; that in an incredibly short time is upon every tongue — March has left them, as mys- teriously and silently as she came among them.
" Where had she gone, and why?" These were questions with which spec- ulative minds were for sometime busy, and anxious. Questions which were never answered to them. She had gone, leaving no trace behind. In a little note addressed to her foster-par- ents, she left them her dear love and a farewell. She should never, never for- get their goodness and tenderness to her ; she had been happy with them, but she had chosen for herself another life, and a happier, and she must needs live it. That was all. After a while other faces came, and crowded the
��memory of her's away. The house on the hill soon found a mistress, who brought to her husband as a dower in the place of March's queenly beauty, a fortune equal in magnificence to that of its owner, and so he was content. It is one of the laws of compensation that gives one good in the place of an- other taken. Only Mr. and Mrs. Thorpe long remembered, loved, and waited for the lost one.
Every story must have its sequel, so has mine. I think it was five years be- fore it came.
In a tiny cottage, embowered and hidden by luxuriant vines and thick, swaying foliage, in a quaint little town, in a clime where the warmth and glory and brightness of the midday sun is never paled and dimmed by snow- hung clouds, where the air is heavy with the perfume of a thousand flowers, and balmy with the luscious breath of tropical fruits ; where over the senses, and into the soul, steal a dreamy, bliss- ful languor, and a strange, beautiful peace, a woman in all her glorious womanhood lay dying. And yet, death does not seem very near to that young creature who reclines on a low couch by the open window, watching and dreaming with a far away look in the shadowy eyes, and a beautiful smile upon the radiant face. A man with blue eyes, full of woman's tenderness, and hair and beard of silvery white- ness, is standing at her side. And now the woman, turning her large, dark eyes full upon him, speaks in a low, musical voice that thrills the listener with a subtile sense of pleasure and of pain. " Dearest and best of friends, I am come very near to the place where the finite and the infinite meet, and blend together, and are lost in one. The past is vanishing like a glad dream, so brief, and yet so full of joy and com- pleteness. All the unrest, and wild, passionate longing seem very far away from me now, such a strange, restful life has come to me. I have been thinking, perhaps it may be that some lives gather their full measure of sun- shine and beauty in a very little time, while others are longer upon the way.
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