"A Man May Not Marry His Grandmother" Chapters IV-VI [pp. 126-137]

APPLIETONS' JO URNAL.
mother. Learning a lesson from the Celestials, three centuries has been, and until time shall
let us rear a shaft to the fathers and the mothers disappear shall be, close to the hearts of every
of that immortality which wrote the Book of Na- age and cycle of men-household words forever
ture, that great book which " age can not wither and ever! The book-thank Heaven! we say
nor custom stale," and whose infinite variety for again-that nothing can divorce from us!
APPLETON MORGAN.
"A MAN MAY NO T MARRY HIS GRA NDMOTHER."
(Conclusion.)
IV.
T was not given to Devons at once to find
an opportunity for telling his adventure to
Marcia. She did not appear at the next lecture, nor at the following one. He saw her at
the library, but she was inaccessible there; although once when he was peeping over his book
at her he saw her, as he for a moment fancied,
return the covert glance, but he could not be
sure of this, since he had no opportunity to confirm his fancy. In default of a more intelligible
acquaintance, he was forced to content himself
with such growth of knowledge as could be
reached by silent observation. He could not fail
to see how much she was deferred to by the other attendants.
"Don't ask me, ask Miss Church; she knows;
she knows everything," he overheard one say to
another, and there was an air of fitness to the
place about her, which was not wholly the effect
of her slight, trim figure, as she moved quickly
and silently about the rooms. The others, in the
absence of the head librarian, had a way of
gathering in the corner and amusing each other
with the thousand and one things which seem to
young girls amusing. It had chanced to Devons
once to be unwittingly an eavesdropper, behind a
barricade of books, to one of the animated conversations that looked so engaging at a distance,
and when he extricated himself he could better
understand why Marcia never seemed to have for
such groups anything but a slight smile as she
passed. Thus it was that putting together numberless trifles he found a character growing out
of them which never seemed to fail when applied as a test to the girl. His own difficulty of
approach, perhaps, added to the dignity with
which he invested her, and the longer he remained at a distance the more perfectly he adjusted to his vision the figure which he saw in
the perspective. He jested with himself sometimes-a mode of reflection which has its disad
vantages-upon the fascination which he felt
creeping over him and drawing him to the library,
even when he had no special errand among the
books. There was an ancient reader there, who
had occupied a certain station so long as to acquire a sort of preemption right to it, and enjoyed
privileges not accorded to others. He had his
books arranged as a kind of fort about his work,
and within the inclosure his papers lay; here he
worked or trifled, whichever it was that he was
doing, and no one ventured to remove the books,
nor did he himself carry away his papers. It
was his private desk, and he would sit at it interminably mending quill pens, and making notes
in a diminutive handwriting on scraps of paper,
keeping up a muttering to himself, or a gentle
murmur which was not unlike the sound of bees
on a summer day. Devons used to look at him
with curiosity, and to wonder if he himself might
not be growing like him; whether, indeed, the
old gentleman had not at some remote period
been under a like glamour with himself, and had
come to haunt the library long after the charm
which drew him had ceased; could it be that he
was himself becoming spectral in his nature,
and destined to suffer his dawning interest in
this girl to evaporate slowly for lack of more
positive encouragement?
He was half scorning himself in this fashion
one forenoon as he came to the library, and for
a moment was disposed to brush the whole illusion away by turning on his heel, but suddenly
conceived the more manly purpose of going in
to his work and entirely disregarding the thin
web which he had so fantastically woven. As
he began to ascend the staircase, he noticed an
elderly lady, stout and short-breathed, and apparently a little lame, toiling up the steps before
him. She stopped a moment and turned about,
with so much fatigue in her manner that he
came to her side and offered her his arm for support.
"Thank you kindly, sir," she said, taking it.
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