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Show of lite l.ult-l parlor we gravely exchanged i cards and Luwtrd loimulJy to one an ji lu r. "1 live i: Nashville, Tenn.," she said. , "and if you ev.-r come there it will givt papa Col. fuulid Trvssahar very great i ilt a-ui i if you will cnine und see us you ! v. ill come, won t you:" i I insured her that 1 would, and we ! went down to lunciT. The head waiter pa vi me u menu mid a check, and 1 ordered or-dered a tiny little meal with some care, during which operation she watched uie with a nervous, per- j ple.ved look which 1 perfectly well I understood, but which for the life of me 1 couldn't see any way of softeningunless soften-ingunless 1 told the head waiter to give mo two checks and tilled up one for her and one for myself, which would have been foolish to my English ideas. As we l finished our microscopic repast, how- , ever, she said in the most matter-of-fact tono to the waiter: . "The check, please." I The obsequious Italian brought It to me naturally and she looked up and said: "And mine, too, waiter.' "They are both together, madame." ")hl but no I want" she began. "Iieally," said I, feeling very uncomfortable, uncom-fortable, "it is such an absolute nothing that it would be simpler, and would give , me a pleasure into the bargain, if you would allow me to sign this, Miss Tres- : sahar." I "Certainly not," she replied, blushing, though Iter tone was quite decided; "will you hand it to me for a moment?" I diil bo and Bhe gravely calculated what her share of our lunch had been, and then producing her purse she counted I out the exact amount in silver and j handed it over to me with the check. "Now," said she, "if you will Bign it it will be all right." I did bo without a word, fascinated, but withal feeling a little "mean," and then the child, laying a quarter down beside be-side her plate for the waiter, said: "Now, let's go back to the parlor for a few minutes and then I must go out." We went up stah'B again and Bat for half an hour or so, talking of quite Beri-ous Beri-ous matters, and then we hade one another farewell, mutually expressing a hope that in truth it might be not "good-by," "good-by," but "au rovoir." Bhe was leaving Denver in an hour's time; 1 also was leaving the same evening. And thus we parted. Up stairs in my room I had a somewhat some-what battered copy of my last volume of poems. 1 put a pen through my name on tho fly leaf and wrote thereon a little inscription in verse expressive of the pleasure I took in transferring to her the possession of the volume, and bo 1 sent it down to her by a servant and betook myself my-self to my packing. I was thus employed, em-ployed, talking tho while to a friend who had dropped in to say "good-by," when a bell boy brought up a crimson rose upon a salver from the office. "Miss Tressahar has just left, sir, and sends this, with her compliments; Bhe has received the book and is much obliged, and says she will write to thank you from Nashville." I laid tho rose reverently between the leaves of my Bible and put it into my valise. A week later I was on a ranch at Los Angeles, Cal., and the post brought j MY 1'IKST LOVE. "What nn old. worn out title!" I fancy . I hear somebody saying, as ho or she turns the leaf and reads the heading of i my idyl. Old. 1 grant you, sir or i madam, but worn out never! Do you I say, an you meet the hundredth face in a i crowd, "What an old, worn out pat-i pat-i tern!" No; for though the faces possess the same features, those features indi-i indi-i vidually and their arrangement ure ever varied, even to the millionth face. So it is with the story of "My First Love;" there ure features in it which you will doubtless recognize as having formed iiart of your day dream, gentle reader, out as you turn ihe last leaf of the narrative nar-rative 1 believe you will feel with me that none save this old, pure, sweet phrase has any right to head these lines. 1 am un Englishman, brought up in all the traditions of an old Tory family by a dear mother God Jest her bouI of whom her friends used to say: "Ah! but she- is of the old school." Very stiff and ceremonious, very punctilious und very polite, but every action fraught with an old world purity and courtesy that made I one think of the pictures of Sir (iodirey j and of the perfumes of dried lavender, ; Man, says Herbert Spencer, is formed by li lb environment, and uiy environment was my mother, a woman of the world, mark you, aux boutB des ongles. You must not imagine that 1 was brought up to man's esiale in ignorance of the foul gases of the valley and marsh while breathing the pure air of the mountain top. The only elf ect visible of the tender ten-der influences which guarded my life till I was lour-and-tweniy was a certain reserve of manner and a more than ordinary ordi-nary "English" horror of unything approaching ap-proaching to "bad form." 1 "tell you all i this to show you once more how love laughs at prejudices and calmly ignoros preconceived ideas. My mother died with the tulips of 188(1, and some of the fellows at tho club persuaded me to come to America, and furthermore, with a view to a thorough ' distraction of my thoughts, prevailed upon me to give a series of readinga in I the States of my own and other versos. 1 have coquetted a little with the muse, and, as would be the case with most young poets or rather rhymesters tho thought of presenting my work viva voce to the people of the United States i caused a strange thrill of delight. I communicated, therefore, with Maj. I Pond, and in the early autumn of IS I sailed for the States, and commenced a I tour which, 1 am happy to say, was iot unsuccessful. me ono day a letter of four pages in a fretty Italian handwriting it was from 'auline. fche had received my book juBt before she left Denver and hoped 1 had received hor roue. fcJho had read my verses and was pleased to say that she Uked them that they touched her. Some of them, written in a cynical, despairing strain, she criticised nnd regretted, bhe hoped that some day 1 shouid meet some one who would make me think better of life and cure me of my love of solitude. She commended my body to happiness, and my soul to God, and remained over, very sincerely my friend, Pauline Tressahar. P. ti. Sho hoped 1 would not forget my promise and come to Nashville. Yesterday only yesterday a friend 6ent me u Nashville paper containing an article concerning myself; almost alongside along-side of the criticism on my poems, in a column headed "Personal Intelligence," there appeared as an item of local interest inter-est Ihe announcement of the engago-Uiit engago-Uiit of "the beautiful daughter of our esfcenied fellow citizen, Col. Euclid Tressahar," to the son of some equally esteemed inhabitant of Nashville, Tenn. I cut out the article on myself ami my poems wiMi ihe paragraph attached to its bide and, folding it up small, opened my Dible to place it with Pauline's Pau-line's gift. The leaves of the book were-perf were-perf timed by tho erw-cet dry petals the soul that still lived of lur (Yiiicii rose. And on tho page where it had lain there was a little crimson stain 1 had pressed it upon the verse of Kt, Paul's Epistle to tho brethren at Philippi: "Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things nre honest, w lint soever tilings are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever whatso-ever things are of good report, if there bo any virtue, think on these things." Edward licion Allen in Philadelphia Times, The following June found me In Denver, Den-ver, Colo., and I put up at the Grand Canon hotel lor a week, during which time I gave a couple of readings and i rested amid the gorgeous scenery of the j state. The third day alter my arrival I ! had come down as usual to take my matutinal colfee in the public dining room, and was hardly seated when a lady, whom candor compels me lode-scribe lode-scribe as "an old lady," came into the room, accompanied by a young girl. They took their seats exactly opposite to me. A young girl, did I say? JSay, she was hardly more than a child 17 or 18, maybe and her face traced itself upon my soul in a manner which is inellace-1 inellace-1 able. It was a round face, with just that slight squareness of jaw which promised to givo .to it a wonderful strength of personality as years went on. Her. coloring was perfect, faintly flushed with the dawn of womanhood, with white temples and throat, and a high, pale forehead, the whole framed; in a careless torrent of hair like to liquid : gold. A pair of great wandering, but withal fearless, blue eyes, a iinely ! modeled nose, just the least bit tip tilted, ! anil a mouth liko those of tho cherubs: in Raphael's "Madonna" in theSistine: chapeL She was a little girl, and her 1 figure was just taking unto itself the sweet sinuous curves of womanhood, j which showed themselves as she moved 1 ! to her seat with all the untaught, un-! j conscious grace of perfect and healthy ; development. Our eyes met as she sat ; j down. She looked at me with a full, frank gaze in which there was an unde-; lined something of half recognition she had evidently known some ono who resembled uiu and then, having satisfied herself of my non-identity, 6ho turned i her attention to the older lady and their respective breakfasts. A monionl afterwards after-wards 1 rose and left the room. During the next two or three days we met periodically, in the dining room, in the corridors, in the elevator or on the streets of Denver, and we always threw' one another in passing that glance which, though upparcntly absolutely expressionless, ex-pressionless, seems to say: "If we knew one another we should bo friends." Have you never seen people in the streets, in theatres, in ball rooms, con-1 cerning whom, as your eyes meet for a fractional part of a second, you have said this to yourself almost unconsciously? uncon-sciously? 1 have, and 1 always regret these unknown friends of mine, but 1 never fell it more strongly than 1 did with regard to Ibis golden haired child' whom 1 met 'way out in Denver, Colo. The last morning of my stay in the city arrived, and 1 was sitting alone iu my room up stairs, jotting down on a scrap of music paper the chords of an ac- ; companiment to a liltle song that I had written for a friend in Baltimore. My 1 task tinished, 1 went down stairs to the ; parlor, where thero was a piano, to try their cll'ect, and, linding the room np-1 parenily empty, 1 seated myself on the music stool. As 1 opened the piano . I heard a rustle, and turning round 1 saw my little unknown friend sitting in a low arm chair in the embrasuro of a window, her great blue eyes Used uon me in feniiess curiosity. 1 rose instinctively instinc-tively and said: j "Shall I be disturbing you, mademoiselle, mademoi-selle, if I play over a few chords?" "Oh, no," she said. "Please go on." As I turned to the keyboard she added: "Will my presence- disturb you? Shall 1 go away?" "By no menns," 1 hastened to reply; "on the contrary. Indeed.) shall take I the liberty, it' you will allow me, of ask-: ask-: ing your opinion on a little melody ihal 1 1 want to run over." 1 She looked out of tho window for a I moment, aud then turning her eyes full upon me once more, she remarked: I "I came down here because 1 was 60 j lonesome up stairs. Auntie has gone j i out on business, and somo friends 1 cy-' cy-' pec ted to call und take mo for a drive . haven't arrived." "Is it possible?" was my rejoinder, and , in ton minutes we were the greatest ! friends in the world. We sat in the I drawing rooiu of ihe Gram1 Canon hotel fur nearly an hour, chatting gayly of America and LLmilanu and of our Hobbies and of ourselves. At tho end of thai ! time she rose and said: "Well, it's a humiliating necessity, hut I must eat to keep alive, and if you will excuse me. I'll go down to luncheon." 1 1 rose also and answerc(l: "You are : ouite right if there were no prosy side , to life, we should not appiccinto the I poetry of it" and then, altera moment's ' hesitation, addrd. "I am a foreigner, 1 and do not understand your rules of conduct, but would it Ik? very casual of mo to suggest that, as I also must live, and with ihnt object in view must also lunch, we should luuch together, as you aro alone?" "Why, of course why shouldn't we?" nnd then she added, a look of perplexed inquiry coming over her brows, "I don't j know quite who is going to introduce us j to one another, Mr. " j "Neal," said 1; "Ronal Neal at the service of Mademoiselle ?" "Tressahar Paubne Tressahar,' said she. "Let me give you a card." She fumbled for her card case and I ' for mine and standing in the doorway |
