Was It Right to Forgive? A Domestic Romance. Amelia E. Barr

gentleman from the plains has had it all his own way,” she thought. “If we had more company, he would have been less remarkable. But company would have interfered with Henry’s great work, and it has been hard enough to keep the necessary quiet for his writing, as it is. However, we shall go to New York soon; and then adieu! Mr. Van Hoosen. He sings a song about the ‘Maids of California.’ I shall tell him it will be proper at his age to make a selection very soon from them.”

      Under circumstances like these, the summer and the autumn passed away like a vivid dream. Adriana was much at Filmer Hall; and Rose very frequently spent the day with Adriana in her home. Mrs. Filmer was too wise to oppose the constant companionship. She regarded it merely as a contingent of country life; and she quieted any irritable thoughts by the reflection that her daughter would marry early, and have other interests, and then put away her girlish, immature predilections of every kind. And in the meantime, 52 she was rather glad that Rose should have an “interest,” for Rose could make herself very tiresome if she was without one.

      At length the chrysanthemums were beginning to bloom, and Mrs. Filmer spoke decidedly of a return to the city. Mr. Filmer had written a whole chapter of his book, and felt the need of change and mental rest; and Mrs. Filmer reminded Rose that her costumes for the coming season were all to buy; and the house was not yet put in order for the winter’s entertaining. Harry said they were leaving the country just when it was most charming; but even Harry was not averse to an entire reconstruction of his life. He was still deeply in love with Adriana, and strongly attached to Antony, but he was a little tired of walking, and driving, and boating. The idea of his club, of the opera, and the theatres, of dinners and dances, came pleasantly into his imagination.

      Then arrived the time of displaced furniture, and of days sad with the unrest of packing and the uncertainties of parting. Harry began to think; and Antony thought more positively than he had ever before done. Adriana was silent and full of vague regrets; she had dreamed such a happy dream all summer; would the winter days carry it away? Rose was also quiet and a little mournful; but her regrets were flashed with hopes. She was looking forward to new conquests; and yet she was strangely averse to resign the one great heart that had been her worshipper through the happy summer months.

      All alike were waiting for an opportunity. And the days went by, and it did not come, because it was watched for. But suddenly Mrs. Filmer resolved to give a “Good-bye Ball,” and then, when everybody’s 53 thoughts were on the trivialities of flowers and ribbons, destiny, one morning, called them to account for the love she had given. She wanted to know what harvest of joy or sorrow had been grown upon the slopes of the sunny summer days, and whether the love that had brightened them was to be homed forever in faithful hearts; or cast out wounded and forlorn, to perish and be forgotten on the hard highways of selfish and mercenary life!