Litchfield Enquirer

MISCELLANEOUS.

From the Boston Statesman.

COURTSHIP. A SHOWER.

The storm that had swept so profusely over the woods and hills was subsiding. The ample sky flung back its veiling tresses, and the sun came out once more, touching the dripping wilderness with a singular beauty. The exceeding richness of the blue heaven, the fiery edging of the distant clouds, the bright green outline of the forest, and the swollen streams that ran braiding themselves into the long leaning grass, presented a singular map of nature—dripping in the freshness of the summer shower. The winds were as clear and cool as if they had slept on the surface of the ocean: the flowers of a thousand hues were in full bloom, and poured out their perfume, as the fountain poured its song, to the breath of the fervent wind.

"Well, this shower is over at last, Ellen, and I guess it will be all the better for it,—all the better: I say, Ellen, you'd better come out and see the rainbow, before it fades forever," and Ellen was out with a cautious step, as the wet grass, like the mane of a sweating steed, shed its thousand drops upon her feet.

"The rainbow! which way is it, Charles? I can't see it."

"Why don't you see it, right through the notch of that maple tree, where the leaves are torn off; now the wind blows—take care of your clothes, don't you see how it showers down on you, Ellen?—there, there's the rainbow,—and a fine one—I never saw the different colors more clearly defined. I'll tell you, Ellen, it always makes me think that some seam of the beautiful sky has been rent by the shaking of the thunder, and the airs of heaven fallen out—but not daring to wander, they cling to the wound, until they are taken in again."

"Now, Charles, I like you for that: but see, it has almost vanished; the clouds that were here just now, are all gone; and the sky is as blue, as"

"As your eyes, my dear."

"Poh, I don't want your help—besides, I don't think your comparison is perfect; for my eyes are not quite so blue—they are lighter."

"Well, Ellen, we'll say—as blue as your stocking."

"Ha, ha, ha—that's worse yet"—and she displayed a beautiful ankle, and a white stocking.

"What'll you say now mister Charles?"

"Why, Ellen, as blue as itself—is that correct?"

"It will do, Charles; but look at that dry bare limb among the green leafy branches on that maple tree. What does that remind you of?"

"Various things. It is like a dead child in a great and flourishing family, still nourished by all the surviving members with affectionate solicitude; but answering their silent whisperings with an unchanged look of decay. You may deck it with leaves, but it knoweth them not; and the leaves wither upon the stem and lose their fragrance, and are blown away in the summer wind. So I have seen the maiden deck the corse of her lover, with coronals blooming from the hill side, in the beautiful hope that the innocence of living things she so much loved, might reanimate a loved one, from his eternal slumber. Now, Ellen, if I should die before you, that is what I should want you to be to me—take me out in the open air, and fling flowers upon my breast. Will you?"

"Perhaps I will, but you can't think of dying before me I hope, Charles—that wouldn't be proper. It is not so polite for a girl to cry at her lover's death as for a man at the death of one he loves. And that is all the reason why I wish you to let me die first, because I should be much easier in my grave, if I thought you stood by it crying."

"Ellen, that is all fol-de-rol. I don't calculate to die this fifty years; and I don't calculate you will."

"Ho! I live fifty years—I would sooner cut my own—"

"Hush!—Ellen Fleming, you may live as long as you please; but so long as you do live, I intend to love you with all my soul—I do—how white your hand is—how you blush! oh, Ellen!"

"What, Charles?"

"Why, there's the minister, and there's the church; and here are we."

"Well, what of that?"

"I want you to go with me to the minister's, while I get him to go to church.—It's week day, and I'd rather be married on a week day."

"Who are you going to be married to?"

"To you."

"Very well."

J. O. B.