Edge-tools, Chapters IX - XIII [pp. 193-210]

APPLETONS' JOURNAL.
A MAGAZINE OF GENERAL LITERATURE.
NEW SERIES.]
SEPTEMBER, i880.
ED GE- TOOL S.
IN TWO PARTS.-PART SECOND.
"Many were in love with triflers like themselves, and many fancied that they were in love when in truth they
were only idle."-RASSELAS.
CHAPTER IX.
HEN Honor Bumrns, as the outcome of her
hasty and not too coherent meditations,
decided that "something must be done," she had
as little idea as have most people who make use
of that convenient phrase what the " something"
was to be; nor could she foresee by whose hand
the work was to be accomplished. We are all
ready enough to " forecast the years," but, did
we know beforehand what our own share of the
future was to be, I doubt that but few of us
would be willing to perform our allotted share in
the programme.
The room that she and Mrs. Burns shared
together, and from which their sleeping-chambers
opened on opposite sides, overlooked a narrow
strip of ground, by courtesy called the garden
(consisting of some gravel-walks and scentless
flower-plots beyond the piazza, beyond that some
scorched turf, and beyond that the beach and the
sea), from two large windows which opened
nearly to the floor. Between these windows
stood the toilet-table, and at one end of this, and
close to the window, Honor sat down, resting
her elbows on the table and her chin on her
clasped fingers, to think.
Before her lay a book which she recognized
as having seen in Aimee's hands a day or two
before. She had not noticed then, but remembered now, that it had been laid aside as she
entered, and no remark made thereon; and, wondering a little, she took it up to examine it. It
was a volume of poetical selections; and a pink
glove, that Emmeline had worn the preceding
night, lay between the leaves of Joaquin Miller's
"Myrrh."
VOL. IX.-I3
Honor looked at the poem with more attention than she had ever given it. The music of
the verses did not move her, but to her excited
fancy there seemed a keen and cruel appropriateness to present circumstances in some of the
lines: " I wish his love had less of worship and
of tenderness"; "At last it comes to me that
none were ever true as he "; " Farewell, for here
at last the ways divide, diverge-" She threw
the book down; she did not need the name upon
the title-page to tell her whence it had come.
It was another link in the chain her mind was
forging-another proof that there was cause for
anxiety and dread.
But her feeling was as yet only of doubt and
bewilderment; no anguish of certainty, no perception of inevitable misfortune, no knowledge
that her misgiving was the common talk of
others, were yet hers; and no sharp, keen pang
of personal pain, no sudden stab at self, had yet
divided her unconsciousness as the lightning
cleaves the tree. That was all to come.
While pondering whether she should write
at once to her father to come and fetch them
home, and reflecting that it would be little use,
as he might even now be on the way, she became aware that, as far as the sense of hearing
was concerned, she was no longer alone. The
windows were furnished with those narrow iron
balconies for holding flowers which as effectually
prevent any observation of the outside world as
they screen from observation those within, so
that Honor could not see who were her neighbors; but male voices and an odor of cigars apprised her that some one must be either at the
window next to hers or on the veranda below.
She had no intention of listening to any man's
[No. 5r.