After the Storm

Irene started up with an exclamation, stood as if in doubt for a

moment, then, springing from the portico, she went flying to meet

him, as swiftly as if moving on winged feet. All the forces of her

ardent, impulsive nature were bearing her forward. There was no

remembrance of coldness or imagined wrong--pride did not even

struggle to lift its head--love conquered everything. The young man

stood still, from weariness or surprise, ere she reached him. As she

drew near, Irene saw that his face was not only pale, but thin and

wasted.

"Oh, Hartley! dear Hartley!" came almost wildly from her lips, as

she flung her arms around his neck, and kissed him over and over

again, on lips, cheeks and brow, with an ardor and tenderness that

no maiden delicacy could restrain. "Have you been sick, or hurt? Why

are you so pale, darling?"

"I have been ill for a week--ever since I was last here," the young

man replied, speaking in a slow, tremulous voice.

"And I knew it not!" Tears were glittering in her eyes and pressing

out in great pearly beads from between the fringing lashes. "Why did

you not send for me, Hartley?"

And she laid her small hands upon each side of his face, as you have

seen a mother press the cheeks of her child, and looked up tenderly

into his love-beaming eyes.

"But come, dear," she added, removing her hands from his face and

drawing her arm within his--not to lean on, but to offer support.

"My father, who has, with me, suffered great anxiety on your

account, is waiting your arrival at the house."

Then, with slow steps, they moved along the upward sloping way,

crowding the moments with loving words.

And so the storm passed, and the sun came out again in the firmament

of their souls. But looked he down on no tempest-marks? Had not the

ruthless tread of passion marred the earth's fair surface? Were no

goodly trees uptorn, or clinging vines wrenched from their support?

Alas! was there ever a storm that did not leave some ruined hope

behind? ever a storm that did not strew the sea with wrecks or mar

the earth's fair beauty?

As when the pain of a crushed limb ceases there comes to the

sufferer a sense of delicious ease, so, after the storm had passed,

the lovers sat in the warm sunshine and dreamed of unclouded

happiness in the future. But in the week that Hartley spent with his

betrothed were revealed to their eyes, many times, desolate places

where flowers had been; and their hearts grew sad as they turned

their eyes away, and sighed for hopes departed, faith shaken, and

untroubled confidence in each other for the future before them, for

ever gone.