BY SUSAN PINDAR.
"How heartily sick I am of these love stories!" exclaimed Kate Lee, as she impatiently threw aside the last magazine; "they are all flat, stale, and unprofitable; every one begins with a soirée and ends with a wedding. I'm sure there is not one word of truth in any of them."
"Rather a sweeping condemnation to be given by a girl of seventeen," answered Aunt Mabel, looking up with a quiet smile; "when I was your age, Kate, no romance was too extravagant, no incident too improbable for my belief. Every young heart has its love-dream; and you too, my merry Kate, must sooner or later yield to such an influence."
"Why, Aunt Mable, who would have ever dreamed of your advocating love stories! You, so staid, so grave and kindly to all; your affections seem so universally diffused among us, that I never can imagine them to have been monopolized by one. Beside, I thought as you were never—" Kate paused, and Aunt Mabel continued the sentence.
"I never married, you would say, Kate, and thus it follows that I never loved. Well, perhaps not; I may be, as you think, an exception; at least I am not going to trouble you with antiquated love passages, that, like old faded pictures, require a good deal of varnishing to be at all attractive. But, I confess, I like not to hear so young a girl ridiculing what is, despite the sickly sentiment that so often obscures it, the purest and noblest evidence of our higher nature."
"Oh, you don't understand me, Aunt Mable! I laugh at the absurdity of the stories. Look at this, for instance, where a gentleman falls in love with a shadow. Now I see no substantial foundation for such an extravagant passion as that. Here is another, who is equally smitten with a pair of French gaiters. Now I don't pretend to be over sensible, but I do not think such things at all natural, or likely to occur; and if they did, I should look upon the parties concerned as little less than simpletons. But a real, true-hearted love story, such as "Edith Pemberton," or Mrs. Hall's "Women's Trials," those I do like, and I sympathize so strongly with the heroines that I long to be assured the incidents are true. If I could only hear one true love story—something that I knew had really occurred—then it would serve as a kind of text for all the rest. Oh! how I long to hear a real heart-story of actual life!"
Kate grew quite enthusiastic, and Aunt Mable, after pausing a few minutes, while a troubled smile crossed her face, said, "Well, Kate, I will tell you a love story of real life, the truth of which I can vouch for, since I knew the parties well. You will believe me, I know, Kate, without requiring actual name and date for every occurrence. There are no extravagant incidents in this "owre true tale," but it is a story of the heart, and such a one, I believe, you want to hear."
Kate's eyes beamed with pleasure, as kissing her aunt's brow, and gratefully ejaculating "dear, kind Aunt Mable!" she drew a low ottoman to her aunt's side, and seated herself with her head on her hand, and her blooming face upturned with an expression of anticipated enjoyment. I wish you could have seen Aunt Mable, as she sat in the soft twilight of that summer evening, smiling fondly on the young, bright girl at her side. You would have loved her, as did every one who came within the sphere of her gentle influence; and yet she did not possess the wondrous charm of lingering loveliness, that, like the fainting perfume of a withered flower, awakens mingled emotions of tenderness and regret. No, Aunt Mabel could never have been beautiful; and yet, as she sat in her quiet, silver-gray silk gown, and kerchief of the sheerest muslin pinned neatly over the bosom, there was an air of graceful, lady-like ease about her, far removed from the primness of old-maidism. Her features were high, and finely cut, you would have called her proud and stern, with a tinge of sarcasm lurking upon the lip, but for her full, dark-gray eyes, so lustrous, so ineffably sweet in their deep, soul-beaming tenderness, that they seemed scarcely to belong to a face so worn and faded; indeed, they did not seem in keeping with the silver-threaded hair so smoothly parted from the low, broad brow, and put away so carefully beneath a small cap, whose delicate lace, and rich, white satin, were the only articles of dress in which Aunt Mabel was a little fastidious. She kept her sewing in her hand as she commenced her story, and stitched away most industriously at first, but gradually as she proceeded the work fell upon her lap, and she seemed to be lost in abstracted recollections, speaking as though impelled by some uncontrollable impulse to recall the events long since passed away.