El itlrrt tilt. HOW I CAME TO BE MARRIED. I promised William Ilepburno to tell him how I came to be married, end as it was mail er an odd way, - perhaps it will amuse the pub lic ; so hem goes! nikly name is Thomas Peti tion Stevens; I was born and bred in Connec ticut, taught my letters, and the "three Its, Readin', Ritin', and 111011[160c" in a district school house; learned Latin Greek, and Alge bra of old Parson Field ; and 'grew tobncoo enough.on my father's farm, before I was twenty to help me squeeze through the. college course at old Yale. There I ftilind myself one commencement day, having ed thy ,third oration to a blooming audience in the galleries, and a grim crowd below, the happy possessor of a sheep skin, a blue ribbon, a wooden spoon, two dol lar's and fifty-six cents, and two suits of.clothes, one very shabby, and one pie-new. •The world .was all before me where to choose,' as it says in the primer; and I decide to go up into Colebrook, and see if my maternal tin cle Seth Dowens, wanted a man to help get in rowan. I paid two dollars-end-fifty __centa_ to_ get there, and landed on the door step with nothing Cut my own personal attractions to re- Commend me. However, Uncle Dowens was as glad to see me as if I had six dollars in stead of six cents in my left band waiscoat pocket, and hired me for the late haying on the , spot, and I set up a singing school in the red school house the next Saturday night.— When the baying was over, I staid a few weeks to see what I could turn my. hand-to, arid Un cle DowenS being on the , school. committee, through his influence I was made principal of Colet<ook Academy when the winter term be gan, aril having a very pretty set of girls to teach, I made myself and my services so ac ceptable to parents and guardians, that I hold the place to this day, three years from then. One day Inst spring, I eat on the stoop of Uncle Dowens's house, thinking of nothing in a very resolute way, with discussive seasons of listning to a brown thrush thathid in sonic neighboring tree, the - nee giyPg out all manner of comic illustratioili-ory other bird's musical powers ; bitting off, with gay sarcasm, the robin, oriole, and whippoorwill ; even giving the faint peep of a dew wet chick lost in the grass, the warning cry of a hawk, or the love lore thrill of a song-sparrow, with here and there a pewit, a blackbird, or the li quid frolic of a bobOlink's song, mimicked, ex aggerated and interspsead with its own deliri ous marble, full of spring and its sweet exulta tion. I was lapsing out of tho thrush's con cert into nothingness again, when a quick lit tle patter, like a hail storm coming down stairs • woke me up, and at my elbow stood the litho shape of LiiiY . Dolines, my speeinlcouSin, and a peculiar little bit of womanhood as one might see in a life-time. 'Get up Tom !' quoth the green sun-bonnet. want you to take a walk with me.' I was rather in a quietist state just then, but who ever thought of resisting that clear voice, with such a decisive tone and flawless ring? , where are you going, Lizzy ?' said I, after we had traveled silently, like people in fairy stories, half through Uncle Downes's farm.— •0h !' said she, recolecting herself, or rather me, •I'm going to Asa Burt's lot, after sonic columbine plants, and you may carry the bas ket.' Graccious princess !' retorted I, •accept my dovoirs, and put your foot upon my neck, if it pleases you.' It doesn't' said the princess; .•1 only want you to behave like a man, and not wait next time for a lady's request, before you offer' help. At this 1 whistled slightly, and rubbed my Minds; Lizzy had a way of speaking truth that was—well—plain ! but she knew it, and turned her rosy face round to me with the divi nest smile of intelligence and sweetness. 'Don't mind it Tom, it is all for yo good, and you can't get angry with me, you know.' 01' course I couldn't, such a, face its that wits talismanic; besides she was n(y cousin : and, it is a singular fact in the natural history of man, that though that there are no people on earth one gets so entirely and .utterly disgus ted and out of temper with as disagreable and intrustive cousins; it is yet quite out of the na ture of things to be disturbed by a 3 oung, pretty; smiling cousin, however saucy, It demonstrates most convincingly the old Scotch • proverb. "Bluld's thicker than water." All the nfliinities of ancestry, all the tender asso ciations of childhood, all the nameless sympa thies that at•e only existent between relatives, spring up to harmonize cousins; and other blood beats more warmly toward its severed title in the pulse of a relation—except, as I said before, the disagreable ,ones. - So I not poly rti l frained from getting vexed at LiZzy's 'reproof, but submitted 'with' a' siveei huraility. and would have kissed the rod, had it, been required. 'Do you hoar that thrush, Tom 2'• broke in thMlittly, upon my meditation.. 'Yeti; ma'am I have been listening to it this hour, .froth the east stoup." a lazy creature you are ! spe rdiug a whole - hour in mortal idlent ; ss, this 1,,c01y day.' • 'Not a bit of it,' Mademoiselle ; my meditations in that stoop were .of the most !EMI useful character; noth ng less than r Skillful analysis (mental, of murse,) of the vibratory power of air, and its probable capabilities in mechanick.' .0111 Ton, TOM ! can't you let schoolmastering alone, on Saturdays? and such a celestial Satut day as this; look there, if you want a better meditation than your an alasis.' I did look up tl - ''ougli the slim, 'gray bran ches of the wood t.'tWere skirting, and there, on the leafless bough of a tall hicory tree, sat two wild. pigeons, eying us with soft. shy glan ces, stooping.theirgraceful shining necks, end drring'them up again with a native pride, no unlike that of my cempannion, though I OP. her of being anything hove-like I A few steps on the dead leaves started the pretty creatures from their perch, the dull blue plumes shot suddenly into white, and black and gray, and slowly they lit, some few rods off, on a fir tree, while we went on our way. • `Do you know, Tom," said Lizzy, I have a theory about birds, and people, I think ev ery one is like some bird. Could you guess, now who a wood pigeon always ninkei me think of?" knoW who has that same way of drawing up her head, Miss Lizzy ; no other than your far self' Nonsense I an) no more like thirt pigeon than I um like a turkey ; nor as much, for I can gobble inimitably, to the intense rage of all the turkeys in our barn yard No indeed, I am much more like an oriole ; look nt that one, how it dashes aslant the elm boughs, and makes a descent into the hollow below, like a flake of fire; that's the way I drop into our stupid sewing societies here,' and make the old ladies' hair stand end with my i bsurdities. No lif yon do not recognize our Colebrook wood-pigeon, I shall not help yon.' -Then I shall never know-e - 7V 4 ' joined I, in a tone of Mock lamentation. 'Oh! yes, you'll discover for yourzelf, some time,' laughed Lizzy, quietly climbing a fence lie tween the honie•fermqud Asa's lot. 'Why, Liziy, you are too quick ! I was just offering to help you, and you are over.' never will have any help, sir, over a fence ; what is the use of being treoutary girl, if you cannot cross a fence without help?' - Not much, indeed' in this New England, where every acre field is fenced ; but Lizzy, look ! herp are columbines enough for you.' As, 1 ipo'ic, we had reached the, centre of the littie•meadow through which crept a slow, bright stream, keeping the grass about it green er th.,in the sea, and set thick with blue violets and golden cowslips ; while on the drier banks ot,moss and turf that Skirted the marshy bar of the brook, hundreds of sunny adders'-tong ues flaunted their yetlow turbans, iill jdrbpped with garnet in the spring winds, and.stitl fur ther buck, among budded It - Tines and sweet fern, myriads ofauemons, fair and'frail, bent languidly to the warm breath of the ,south, seeming just ready, so aerial were there shapes to take flight from their rest upon earth. On the inner edge of the meadow - a great gray rock abutted from the Hi side right on to the greensward ; about its base clustered a quaint crowd of brown flowered trilliums, and the del icate straw-bells of May—while on its ledges, from every crack and shelf were a grain of earth could harbor, sprung -Innumerable col umbines of the brightest scarlet and gold, swayilig, and dancing, and tossing their jew eled heads like veritable fairy princesses, so full of laughter and delight, that you waited involuntarily to hear the gay peal of musical mirth from their tiny bells, and fancied on each new sigh of the fingrant air, a far off echo from their tinkling in some distant field. Here my task began, and in a few minutes Lizzy's basket was tilled to the brimb with roots, and her hands with the blossoms—fit representatives of her gay brilliant, graceful self, ns she stood poised on a ledge of the rock . —her.sun-boonet hanging by one string, her face burning with the warm flush of youth and health, her blue eyes glowing deeply in the sun-light, mid her soft chestnut hair coiling in lustrous rings about her throat, lifted by the light win 1, and melted to living gold wherev er a sunbeam kissed it. I know I stood there with mouth and eyes wide open, like. the sun•strnck fool I was, 'glowering' at Lizzy, who must have had sonic idea of my condition, for suddenly she began to descend the rock with free, firm steps, like a chamois (at least f I suppose so, vide Buffon) and I remembered afterward, as, ono does re, membered things seen and not perceived, that there we's a furitive smile glittering In the cor ners of her eyes. As for me, I was altogether in a maze, for the idea had suddenly taken posses. sion of me that I was in love . ,'titittrally in good earnest, in love with my cousin Lizzy ! Every thing I had the presence of mind to recollect, favored that idea. ' Did I not obey her like a. bond-slaie ? was I not always so lonely at Un cle Downs's when she went away adrinr-' ed her beauty more than that of any' other 1 admired her mind in' ets active, earnest, and noble 'developinent. Her character had (mutts, to he sure, a need of some small fetninti Virtnesy hitt love would teach her thogo.—Ah did She love me ?-Tomf are you asleep?' pealed from the lips of which I had been dreaming. 'N- o, Lizzy, I was thinking.' Conte a few steps further, then, takd'l will find you a better place to think, for 4sl'elizArt '4l - sl'A N),' , I • if yOu had eves to see, there is a hornet's nest visible about a foot from his head; in that ma ple sapling, and you are in what the tle79a' , pet's call a precarious situation.' • 'SO re•lnT thought, 1 1 1 - o:lifyself, adding aloud, nm bound to follow you, mademoitlelle; only lead_ me.' A tnief walk over the green field brought US to its upper corner, where the brook leap ed and chattered over a stony bed, before it sung itself to sleep in the.silent chasuel below. Ovgy this little nook stood two great apple• trees; rosy with bloom, Milling the air with their delicate and peculiar ordor, and all mur. murous with honey-{'gees, :whose loving labor song only lightened the cool silence of the shadow and the perfume; while the little brook's laugli toned itself to a bobofink's voice, that' echoed its mad mirth bitek agrin from the nearest fence post. 'Sit down,' said My liege lady, it its too pleasant not to be en joyed.' I seated myself on the turf, still in a dreaM, while Lizzy bathed her hands and face in the cool water, aiid anchored her flowers to a stpAie on.the edge of the stream to keep them frOin fading. She came back to me looking as fresh and, lovely as the spray of pink apple-blossonis dho held in her hand, and, seating herself be side- me, began to talk about. them. Tier entirel3 , unembarrassed air gave me a sort of 'shiver, but I listened. 'Aren't these blossoms very pretty, Tom? 'There is something especi ally fascinating to me about 'apple-blows,' ns Uncle Asa calls them; they are so refined, so gracious, 'so home-like; withal softly. and warmly tinted, and of such delicate scent, a little bitterness about it. just enough to make it piquant, not insipid: a sort of common sense, do you understand? And then they are so full of proinise for future winter firesides: I hove a vision of a whole cider-barrel and ten apple-pies in the very cluster I hold! but really I nm serious about their beauty and expression• my flowers will do well to mate the wild pigeons won't they?' As she spoke nn oriole flashed across the meadow, anal her own comparison for herself made a liko'flash accross my thoughts; how beautiful, hciw piquant she was'! and oh! Thomas Petition Stevens, what a fool you . were! dyed in the grain! I lumbered on to my James before her, I don't remember how, and without one word of wnrning gasped out:— •0h Lizzie% I love you to distraction, can't you love me ?' • Her faceAvits absolutely pale with surprise, then a wild and flitting fens swept over it, I could see she thought me suddenly crazy, and the,hot tears-began to fill my eyes, man that Livi!! I suitpose she saw, then, I was in earnest; for she blushed most beautifully, then bent her face down in both her little hands, and began—oh reader pity me !:•-•• actually to laugh :—laugh till • the...red blush spread to the very parting of her linir,toleir ed tifeslMider throat,. the small ear,7•atid—nt length the White fingers. It was too much; I could not bear it; I became a man again. and something very like a thrill of anger brought me to my feet. At this Lizzie looked up, her eyes full of tears from long laughing, and her face radient with dimpling mirth, and yet a sweet shadow of pity and surprise upon it. She held out her hand to me—how could I help taking it? or sitting quietly down • beside her, very much in the state of a water cure patient after the first douche ? 'Dear Tom,' said she in a gentle, laughter-wearied voice, 'do forgive me, but really I could not help it; what does nil you this morning?' 'Nothing but what I just told,' said I, in a sulkey-dignified manner, that was too much for LizzY's seriousness; a little shock of laugh ter shook her again, and brought out new tears, which she wiped away soberly, and 'clasping her hands over the handkerchief look ed round at me with a grave face, through which the comic air flickered, and discompos ed me: 'Tom, you aro very queer; I cannot believe you really thought yOu were in ear nest 1"But I was,' said I Infying by this time become di-posed to hit* -tragedy; love you desperately, devotedly, and if you choose to laugh at the life-long misery of a fellow-being I can only hope you can never knet`V by experience how to sympathise with such misery I' Poor Lizziel she had to bite tier scarlet lips full a minute before sIM could speak- 7 '1161111Y, Tom, Itho not think you know either me or yourself, or you.would not have fancied—what you Seem to have. May I ask who long you—have been• in this' dispetate state.?' 0,. the, wricked:little '-witCh - 1 that question was uttered-in the,sintplest, 'gravest. tone, but I felt the satire to'its lull extent. over i i , no other phrase expresses it. 4 1V14-1' said I, 4i4,not,,lcnov it,„cor. this Morning; but I have felt. uncOnclouely, this long time.'" Toni;' :Tom, don't be Metaphysically `abSerd 1, if you 1?C, 10810 kceK this side of , terms. , „, Can teliyou leen:l'o6h* you- have. been feeling unoonciously this not only do net love ime , but yoiidelleVe somebody else I! I drew.lOng ‘ good as to-explain!'' , 'I menu to,' replied Lizzie; 'only tarn•retind•sol can see yon, fcif I, inuSt Catechise little: I novo. , eau !iarrtoigiiQ with tint interindes for ten minutes.together. 'First I-em to prove you don't love me. You ad- Mire' tae, I dare say, but that is nothing, apt even : the first step, for you would admire r a -prettier, picture More. When I first kriew y 0,416. 6 .01 not/lifro me, yonr • instpets re belled against my character, 1 saw it before I had known youNrcrionthi is it not BO ?' Do You 'think that is fair, Lizzie ? 1 did not know you, titen-4. douldrnot judge.' That is not my i nridweivlom !' •Well, if you well have it l ‘ ponfess I 'felt a little—afraid of you, perhaps not sure that you might not hurt me any me- men t.' 'That will pass, and you may tmewer my next question to yourself; Whether those very 1 instincts have ever ceased to keep a witness among them against me, or my nature as you see it. If I bad loved yoti, I Should have lust all these traits toward you, I should have ceased to rule, to criticise, to condemn., An idea struck me at that moment, and I did not look at Lizzy, but I felt her voice was not quite steady when she began again. 'ilifyou love me, there are a thousand ways in which I 6 bould have seen and put an .end to it before now. You would never have been so meek, and so easily obedient. A man who loves never looses his aenso of domination; if he obeys, it is for beseeching caresses, for love's sake, not because lie recognises a stronger nature than' his own; and you know I am stronger than you in several traits." 'Amen,' said I, rather satirically. 'Now, don't he disagreeable, Tom, I am striving for your good, as Deacon Mather says when he 'tutors' hiS boys. You don't love me for still another reason, Unit you never thought of it till this morning. Is that love ? born of a spring days's idleness, the fickle caprice of sunshine and the south-Wind ? Nonsense ! it is only an apt, illustration of Dr. Watts' truism that "Pntrtn qimie mischief Ftill For idlo 'hands to do Won't wince, for it is a fact. Honestly, now, did you ever think of making love to me when you had any thing else to do ? I see you can't answer, and that is speech enough. Besides, if you had loved me, you never would have asked me as you did; you would, have considered me before yourself, and- led me carefully and tenderly toward taking the one all decisive step of a woman's life.' I gave a long sigh, I was becoming con vinced, And convinced of something Liizie did not intend to prove. 'Do you acknowledge, Tom 2' 'Y es, I suppose I must, but really Lizzy, I thought I loved you, and I'm .not sure yet.' hope you do love me, after, a moderate fashion, but Ali tire not in love with me, as intend to prove to you in the second place, because you are in love with somebody else !' 'Lam resigned !' said I, inwardly amused at her confident tone, and, be it acknowledg• 0, a little terrified also; fur I began, under her minute questioning, to be partly concious of—no matter what, yet. 'Now, I expect you to be - s as honest ns you have hitherto shown yoursey, Tom ; for I am going to question more closely thnn before. You have had dreams—all men and womO'n have—of a home and a future; besides I know ,you went, not six weeks ago, to look at Pea 'eon Mather's new house upon the hill. Yes, don't disclaim ! I know it with an eye.to your architectural sketches, but did not your drettins come back there ? Was there not a figure dimly visible at the long window, a face turning to the gate expectantly, and a pair 'Of neat and busy hands in the 'house wife skep' ? Now, were they nobody's hands ?' rbegan to feel rather restless; how come she to know what I thought ? 'Moreover, is there no lady among your acquaintances with whom you feel an entire Sense of quiet,.rest, and freedom; whose en terance into ever so stiff and cold a room gives it a kindly aspect, like the sudden liting of a wood fire? No one of whom you think, when you are tired, on sad, as a comforting and soothing presence; no eyes to which you turn for sympathy in the expression of thought and alwrys find it; no hands from which you expect to receive the thousand nameless acts of forethought and comMdration that only love prompts ?' ' I had thought to some' purpose, and was half convicted, but not fully enoreto say so. 'Go on Lizzy ! I like to hear you ( ,_' said I af: footing ha incredulous laugh. 'You are not honest,' repled my' catechist, !your laugh was in a false key; it betrays you; 001 will go on: Is there not 'one person whoin you fool a constant wish to sh lter from all the hardiness of life, to protect, t : guard, id strengthen?, *hose image connects itself in some ivtiy with . every woo!, offthe future, withbut whose over recurring idea neither present nor future *enter Into your imagin ing? in' h whom yOu un t OotinclitisTY • hope ?-L- Moreoy.er, is there'no one WlMin' yoUr heart tells you, , with undeniable instinct, ' lot's you as a man'aheuld . he loved— r With entire, de'vo lion and puretonderneso, a patient, faith and a sorrowful constancy, that you rely on with out acknoweledging it? Do you not trust her as,you did your mother?' Is she not a Part of yourself,so truly, that,, till sonic sudden light should awaken you, you could' not perceive you lov,ed her? ; Are' ,uot her eat der. eyes— They're not dark! they are gray.' Now t ' Lizzy laughed indeed,and I, too. The Ay girl! I was quite in her power. 'My dear Tom, dO you suppose I Lave not known this three months thnt you were very quietly eliding (not falling) in love w; t'; Helen Stanton? 'Of course I' saw it, and Ld half the village. As for your exploit this ip.,rning, I think I have fully accounted for 'Lit; and now, having shown you to yours , 2lf, and brought you to confession, do you f.J:ive my laughter? I own it was all unkind. Ida how could I help it?' I don't need' to forgive you, Lizzy,' said I. k You hove done me a great service. i wonder at myself.' • 'Don't wonder, but act, Tom. Iha , l no au thority to say what I did about Ifelk'n',3 liking you, but my own observation, and I :t:1 by no means infallible. I shall not laugh il.'she re jects you, I assure you.' This suggestion .made me thoronc.llly Un quiet. I could no longer repress an i-nperti nence I, had been trying to utter for last fifteen.rninutes. We shall see,' tinid assum ing a miserable caricature of coot lonce',-- 'And, by the wny, Lizzy, how cam, you to he.sorEeP read in the staticies of di• tender passion, as you have shown yourself I ac companied the question with a rnalicir 'is stare nt Lizzy, whose face was instantly louble• dyed with crimson; ' and her hands working relentless destruction with the bough•fapple , blossoms. 'Why— to be honest—l don't—oh ! I meant Helen, by the wild pigeon, Tom,' •V's, I know you did; but I dim n. , • to be blinded by that flash of the oriole Where did yonr wisdom come from, Lizzy see—dear me ! how silly' I am! Tom, I am going to he married to George Stanton, end that is what I brought ou out here to tell you, and then wasted two mortal hours tellin you that you were in love with his sister! It is too absurd Lizzy's words came like rockets 4,n,1 her face dropped in her hands, as she li—shed— no—one hand, for I had taken the olhor, and absolutely was kissing it, I Was so Ver:: glad. George Stanton was the finest fellow 'in the county, fully worthy of Lizzy, had ju-t finish ed his thelogical course, and was to ifo in stalled in Colebrook next month. It was ex actly the best thing, and, as soon as I found words, I told her so, adding, soinewht.t ruef ully, 'I hardly expected to be congratulating you on this subject, two hours ago, but I am sincerely glad Lizzy.' - ~, She looked up with a little sweet laugh, and thanked me; so, rising from the tUrf, wo gathered up the basket and the Columbines, and threaded our way homeward through the woods, silently enough. ' That r4ttAtibt down to Mr. St futon's, and persuaded it4len to go to singiug-school with , -me. I dt . ! . 4know if they bad ti- class without the mt ter, or not. I never asked; for instead of . 'ing in the red school' house, .. Hellen and I i't;re sitting on a pine / log, by the edge of the river, „in the moonlight; and after a great many devices of speech, I bad nt last managed to ask her the same question . I pot to Lizzy in the morning, only in rather a different w;,ly, and much more uneasily. She, too, hid her face, but tears came drop ping through the slender fingers, and she did not forbid me to take away the hands or dry the tears; but looked up at me with her clear eyes, so full of unutterable love, tlat they seemed to have grown blue instead ~ f grey, -and said softly, 'I wonder what I Imre ever done, to be made so happy !' Well for me that I felt, with no slight heart-ache, what the tender humility of her speech implied, though she did not know it herself. If I could not now efface the past, - I would try faithfully to make her future blessed. Wo were married last autumn. First old Father Mather married George and tizzy; then George did the same kind ollice.(er Helen and me.' My wild-pigeon still: kevps that name; and Lizzy and I have once in a while a little clash that Ilelen cannot under,tand.— Only yesterday, when I *asked Mrs. Stanton to admire the comfortable arrangen.tilts of my new houlm (one of Deacon _blather's) she informed me she 'could not sympathize with the life-long misery of, a fellow creature!' I had to laugh in spite of myeelf. That, patient reader, is the way I came to he married._ . . THAT ELOPMHENT CASH NOT so BAP AS RE POILTED.—WO . statdd on Wednesday, Lays the TOY, Traveler, that a woman - recently arrived at Chicagis; - from Kansas; with the drad body of 'her htehand, which sbo 17118 taking East for burial. Atid that on the route she tell in With a young man and on their arrival at Chic'ago, they went off together, leaving the dead body of the husband in the dt , po . t. 13ot it seems that the latter part of the statement was erroneous, for the woman forwardedthc dead body on, and it .arrived in thiA city on' 'aturday, and 15 - tic arried with her now hus band • p,n Monday, ,and the funeral of the do eased husband. way held at ltiaterf6rd on Tuesday last. mxt2i El
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