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Show MAY ASHLEY'S RING. <br><br> "You haven't answered my question yet, Harry Sim! I suppose, then, you cannot answer it, so all there is for me to do is to part." <br><br> They were walking by the river side, that still September night - May Ashley and Harry Sim. The mellow moon hung high in the heavens, and shone down upon the broad, rippling river, and the far stretch of meadow-land beyond it, and the lovers standing together by an old tree, that had witnessed so many interviews in years that it had rustled and whispered there by the river path. <br><br> May was but seventeen -- proud, impatient and sensitive. There was a hasty flush upon her pale, pretty face, and a stormy light in her eyes. Harry Sim stopped, and took both the tender, restless hands in his. <br><br> "You don't mean it, May! You are angry now, but you surely cannot mean that!" <br><br> "Cannot I? You think, then, that I am so much your slave that I will submit to anything you choose to say or do! I will show you that I can live without your favor or your smiles. I can go away from here and strike out a path for myself. You may marry Hattie Gray, if you prefer her to me, and I will never--"<br><br> "Now, May," interrupted Harry, "there is some mistake: I think I can explain -"<br><br> "NO, it is too late now - you must not try! I gave you a chance, and you would not. I see you do not care for me as I thought you did when I let you put this ring on my finger," she said, drawing it off as she spoke, "and I will never ask you for an explanation again!" <br><br> Now? suppose ?? growing angry. He did … provoked him to be set so coolly aside. <br><br> "Just as you please, May," he said, drawing back. "You are in a strange mood to-night, and will not listen to reason. But what are you going to do?" he asked as she drew her shawl about her and turned away, "you are not going?" <br><br> "Yes," she said, turning, and showing a face from which all color had faded, leaving it white and still, "yes I am. I am going where you will never see me again. You will see what I can do to win a name and fortune for myself. And I will never forgive the heartless way you have treated me!" <br><br> "Never is a long time, May," Harry said, still incredulous; "don't say anything you will be sorry for,' <br><br> "No, I will not," she replied, speaking slowly and firmly. "I'll take that ‘never' back." She stepped to the river side, and tossed the ring she had drawn from her finger, far into the rippling waves. "When you bring that ring back to me from the river, then and not until then, will I forgive you!" And before the astonished young man could answer, she had turned, and was flitting up the river path. <br><br> A look of pain and apprehension came into his face, and he looked eagerly and wistfully after the vanished girl. "May! May! Come back!" he cried; "don't leave me so!" <br><br> But she did not turn, and he would not follow. And so, for a moment's anger, those two who had loved each other so well, were parted. <br><br> "She will be sorry and come again to-morrow," he said to himself, as he reluctantly turned homeward. "May is proud, but she loves me too well to cast me off like this." <br><br> So the next night found him an anxious watcher by the river side. But no slender, graceful form, and proud, pale face was there to meet him; and though he came night after night, he never saw any more flitting down the path to the old tree. Then his pride gave way, and he sought her at a dreary boarding house in the village, that had been her only home since she came there two years before, a homeless orphan. <br><br> "No," Miss Strong replied, in answer to his inquiry, "May Ashley ain't here. She got through dress-making for Mrs. Campbell three days ago, and went off. She didn't say where she was going, and as long as she paid her board, I didn't care. She's a stuck-up piece!" with a toss of the head, which showed that May was no favorite. <br><br> He went from there to Mrs. Campbell, a stylish young widow. She met him with her most charming smile, but it changed when he made his inquiry. <br><br> "Miss Ashley did not tell me where she was going," she said coldly; "she left without a cause. I should have been willing to employ her longer, for she was a good seamstress, though too independent in her way. But as she left without consulting me, I did not choose to inquire into her affairs." <br><br> He turned away with a despairing pain at his heart. She had gone - gone to anger and bitterness, jealousy, that he might so easily set right, but for a teasing impulse and a passing touch of resentment. Gone without leaving a single trace to tell where he might find her. Gone without a kindly word of forgiveness or farewell out in the wide, wide world, with only her fair face, her proud, tender heart, her slender, childish hands to fight the stern battle of life alone. <br><br> "I have lost her - my only love!" he murmured, as he stopped at the old tree once more. "I never knew how much I loved her until now." <br><br> Six years later, one November afternoon, May Ashley toiled wearily up the long stairs to the lawyer's office, where she worked at copying. She glided into her accustomed seat but paused a little before taking her pen into her tired fingers, and rested her head upon her hand. <br><br> Six long years! and the fame and the fortune were still so far away. The girl of seventeen who had looked the future in the eye and rushed forward so eagerly to meet it, had learned some hard lessons since then. <br><br> It came over her with a flood of recollections, as she looked out through the dusty windows from her high seat, over the tall house tops to the far blue sky beyond. The parting by the river-side from the one true love of her lifetime; the anger that burned fiercely for a little time then died out, leaving only pain and regrets; the long, single handed fight with poverty, with discouragement, till the brave heart nearly broke; the lack of appreciation for the best endeavors; the years of want and toil; the passionate longing for the love and tenderness she had so hastily thrown away; the slow wasting of the years, that after all her glowing dreams had only brought her, at last, to a place where the grinding heel of poverty no longer pressed her, where, by patient, constant effort she could be sure of a livelihood of tolerable comfort - nothing more. <br><br> Was it nothing more? Yes, the years had taught her worthy lessons, the fiery heart and passionate will of youth had given way to womanly sweetness and strength; the pale face that bent over the books, had won from these a stern teaching, a better meaning than the sparkle and glitter of youthful beauty; for the olden willfulness, it spoke now of patience; for the olden restlessness it told now of peace. <br><br> She took the pen in her fingers and began to write, but her thoughts were far away. Spite of all her efforts, there would come between her eyes and the paper, the shadow of a face looking at her through the stillness of the September night, with love and surprise and reproach in the honest brown eyes. For the thousandth time the lover of the girl had seemed to come before her, looking as he had looked when she turned from him in anger to see him no more. A sigh rose to her lips, as she murmured. - <br><br> "Of course ??????????????.... of him again." <br><br> She resumed her writing, but the sound of voices in the inner office disturbed her. The employer was there talking with some gentleman who had come in with him. Usually May did not mind this, though, she could hear their voices distinctly, but this afternoon she was in a different mood, and that she might fix her attention more closely upon her work, she rose to close the door. As she did so, a name dropped from her employer's lips, caught her ear and held her spellbound. <br><br> "There Harry, you will find these papers all right. Quite a nice little property for a young man like you. You're a lucky fellow." <br><br> "That's what I tell him," said another voice; "but he doesn't seem to appreciate his good luck. He looks as if he were going to the gallows instead of coming into a nice fortune." <br><br> "The fact is, Harry." said the lawyer, "you have buried yourself in that country place so long, you don't know how to enjoy life. In the first place you must go into society more, and the next thing - marry. There are plenty of girls who would like to lift that doleful look from your face, and it is a shame for a young man like you to mope himself to death. Come along with me to dinner, and I'll introduce you to a splendid girl - my wife's niece." <br><br> "Thank you replied a quiet voice, that made May's heart stand still; "I believe I am not so stupid always, but I happened to fall into a brown study just then. As to the young lady," he added lightly, "I will not trouble you for I am a confirmed old bachelor. It would be a pity for her to throw herself away on a dull fellow like me, even if she would be willing to sacrifice herself, which I doubt." <br><br> "Nonsense! you are over-modest," returned the second speaker, moving his chair as he spoke, until he sat just by the door where May could see him. It was out of the question now to shut the door, and she could only seat herself once more at her old place, with a bewildered feeling at her heart, and a mist before her eyes. <br><br> As the young man moved, a sudden ray of the sun flashed upon his watch chain, and glittered downward until it lit upon a quaint little ring suspended from it. The sudden sparkle caught Sim's eye, and he bent forward eagerly. <br><br> "That's a curious ring you wear, Reynolds," he said, in a husky voice; "where did you get it?" <br><br> Reynolds laughed. "There lies the charm. The finding was so curious I keep the ring to tell of it. I found it in the stomach of a fish." <br><br> May leaned forward with a strange, giddy feeling in her brain, and the room grew dark about her but she would not move nor speak. <br><br> "How long ago was it?" she heard Harry ask. <br><br> "Well, a matter of six years or so; and, by the way, Sim, it was the autumn I spent in your town. It was the best fishing I had that year, I remember." <br><br> The room grew darker about May, but she would not move nor cry. <br><br> In a trembling voice Harry asked, -- "Could you be induced to part with it?" <br><br> "Oh, certainly," Reynolds replied, detaching it as he spoke. "If you fancy it you can have it, and welcome. I often thought, --<br><br> The sentence was not finished, for just then the three were startled by a sudden fall. <br><br> "It is Miss Ashley, my copyist!" the lawyer exclaimed, as they hurried into the room together. "She has fainted, she has worked hard this year, and I have feared she would give out." And Harry Sim, coming near, saw in the pale, care-worn face the features of the girl he had lost and mourned for so long. <br><br> "She is recovering," he said, raising the slight form tenderly, with a thrill of thanksgiving in his heart. "Get some water, Harding; and Reynolds, call a carriage. Miss Ashley is an old friend of mine, and I will take care of her." <br><br> The two astonished men left the room to comply with his requests, and when the tired eyes opened, May found herself in the arms of the only man she ever loved. His face was a little sadder and older, but the same love looked out from the honest, faithful eyes. <br><br> "See, May," holding the ring so strangely recovered, "the river has given it up, and now you must forgive me; I have waited all these long years, and I will never lose you again." <br><br> And he never did. --- Waterley. |