University of Virginia Library

WERE YOU EVER THERE?

WHEN a young man is in love, he becomes suspicious of his male companions; but he doesn't understand why any one similarly involved should entertain this feeling toward him. The object of the other party's choice is indifferent to him. He sees nothing especially attractive in her countenance or accomplishments; and, if he chooses to pay her an attention, it is the prompting of courtesy; and, if the other party should object, it is mean jealousy. When a man thoroughly loves a woman, he sees in her an attraction not before noticeable; and so conspicuous become these good qualities to him, that he easily imagines they are as plain to other gentlemen; and any favor they may show her is simply a desperate endeavor to gain the gem he so fondly hopes to wear. It is this simple misunderstanding which causes four-fifths of the heart-burnings and misery attendant upon loving and being loved.

A lovers' quarrel is a formidable affair while it is in progress. It shrouds the two souls in a chilling pall of impenetrable gloom; but, looked back upon from the changed circumstances worked by time, it appears so silly and ridiculous as to be really exasperating.

There was such a state of feeling existing between two of our young folks Sunday evening. They attended church. In the pew given them was a young gentleman, who sat at the opposite end. They entered without disturbing him; and she was brought next to him. They three were acquainted. He nodded to her, and smiled; then he whispered to her, and she looked wonderfully pleased, and whispered back. Her young man smiled too: he knew that he should do something of the sort, if he didn't want to appear painfully conspicuous to the public, which was ready in an instant to divine his jealousy, and gloat over his defeat. But it is a hard matter to smile when you see nothing to smile at: it makes the face tired in an incredibly small space of time. The service proceeded. The lover reached over and spoke to her. He had to speak twice before she heard him. She was apparently abstracted with thought. What thoughts? It made him sick. At the giving-out of the hymn, he leaned forward to take a book from the rack just as the young man secured one. He drew back. What

was that young man going to do? Have her sing with himself, of course. All right: he would not make a fool of himself by looking up a place, offering it to her, and running the risk of a refusal. And so the young man found the place, and extended the book to her. Poor girl! She cast a furtive glance at her lover. He had made no provision for the emergency. She didn't want to sing with this young man. She didn't love him. It was not his shoulder she wanted to press. She took hold of the book, and wondered with all her heart what was the matter with him. Was he ill? Was he a little bit jealous? Woman intuition had struck it, as was evident in the increased brightness of her eyes, in the additional flush to her face. She could not help it any more than she could ward off the fury of Vesuvius; but she was happy in the thought. It was another and a marked evidence of his love.

And he!—what of him! Well, he sat as stiff as if he had suddenly been run full of lead. To add to the pain gnawing at his heart-strings, he felt that nearly every eye in the building was bearing upon him. He looked carefully over the ceiling of the church, staring at the most trifling objects thereon with a fiery intenseness. If he could only make the people believe that he was enraptured with the beautiful and ennobling occupation of architecture, he would be satisfied. If

success is commensurate with earnestness of purpose, he was entitled to it. The service moved along. All the time, the pit of his stomach appeared to be receding away from him, and yet making itself dreadfully felt. His mind ran recklessly to death, hearses, and graveyards. He pictured her in the midst of a gay company, talking, laughing, flirting with this young man, when the news is suddenly let in upon her that he is dead. Dead! cold, stark, stiff,—the one who loved her so madly! There was a grim pleasure in his heart as the picture unfolded her in awful convulsions, calling wildly for him; and on the dark background of the ghastly spectacle was written in flame of fire, "Too late, too late!" Over and over again, this horrible phantasm was conjured up.

And she sat there, happy in her own conceit, and yet feeling pity for him.

And so the service went on; and the meeting closed, and they all passed out. He walked stiffly. She moved easily, with radiant face; and the young man was as beaming as a sun-flower. She told him she had not seen him in a dog's age, and wanted to know why he didn't come up to the house any more. He smiled cheerfully, and said he had been very busy of late, but would make all amends at once. At which she appeared quite pleased, although she secretly hoped he would continue to be too busy to come; but the words were gall and wormwood to the lover.

They got outside finally, and were moving along alone, these two pledged hearts. His face was like a stone, and the pit of his stomach was as faint as a traveller in a weary land. He was rapidly planning his future course. She was heartless: that had been satisfactorily demonstrated. She could not deny this, and also that there had been no provocation. He must leave her. Ah! he would treat her indifferently now: he would give her a little taste of the pain which he was suffering, and see how she liked it. Ah! perhaps she might like it. Oh! the perspiration stood out on his brow in great beads. Heavens! could it be possible she was already gone out to that young man? He must not be rash; and yet—she must suffer too; yes, yes, she must suffer too. He was on the alert for the first evidence of pain on her part. He hungered for it. He wanted her to droop into a despairing silence. Unfortunately, her sex rarely meets expectations.

"How did you like the sermon?" she artlessly asked.

He would have much rather that she asked him why he was so still; but he crowded down the disappointment, and determined to be as indifferent as she was.

"Oh! pretty well," he said, raising his voice a trifle more than was absolutely necessary.

"I never enjoyed a sermon any better in my

life," she maliciously observed, at the same time being quite confident she hadn't been so miserable in a week.

He winced, but promptly said,—

"That's just what I think about it. I shall go to that church every evening after this."

They talked about one thing and another during the rest of the way, the interest drooping more and more as they neared her door. Would he go in? he asked himself a hundred times and every time he said No,—at first firmly and with vigor, but at last very faintly indeed. When they reached the house, he hesitated. She walked up on the stoop, opened the door, and, turning to him, said, "Ain't you coming in?"

He wasn't; but she had not yet weakened sufficiently. So he would go in, but remain dark and stiff like a mummy, to show her what it was to suffer. But he would not give in to her. She would mutely appeal to him, and creep up close to him, and tumble his hair; but he would not melt. He would go away in a few minutes as repellant as he now felt, and she would retire with a dreadful pain in her heart. It was a bright picture he thus conjured,—so bright, that he almost smiled in its radiance.

Then he went in. Had he been a hearse in a city of two million inhabitants, he could not have entered that house with more solemn magnificence.

He didn't go near the sofa: he dropped into a chair, and stared moodily at the carpet. She arranged the lamp, and sank down on the sofa. There was an attempt on her part to shake off the gloom; but he did not respond. He only thought of his suddenly dying, and of her going into maddening convulsions. He sat there, and wanted to die, so as to see how she would take on about it; although dead men are not particularly noted for very keenly observing what takes place about them in this life.

The conversation lagged. Both of them were losing their Sunday evening, the dearest to them of all the week; and she was feeling it keenly. And yet she would persist in talking about the most foreign subjects; while he would gloomily eye the carpet, and answer in the most depressing monosyllables. Finally he got up, and said in a constrained voice that he guessed he must be going. He moved for his hat, wishing that it was a mile away, and feeling as if he would give his life if she would only speak to him. But she took up the light as if this was the farthest from her intentions, and prepared to see him to the door. There was a gloom resting on both of them now, a fearful looking forward to a woe that was to come.

He reached the door without a word being exchanged, and was turning around in an awkward

way to bid her good-night, when a peculiar look—a half-sorrowful, half-smiling look in her eyes—caused him to hesitate, and respond with the same expression.

"What is the matter with you, darling?" she asked, getting as close to him as possible.

There is no need of further accompanying them. In the short space of two minutes, they were squarely posted on the dear, familiar lounge; and it was two o'clock the next morning, as usual, when he left.

As for the other young man, he had eaten a piece of pie and gone to bed hours ago, totally unconscious of the misery he had caused and of those enduring it.