Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXIV, No. 1, January 1849Various
General
Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXIV, No. 1, January 1849
Various
Literature -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals
“Harry, dear Harry, were you thrown—are you injured?” she cried,
raising the head of the apparently unconscious man, and supporting it on
her knee. “Oh, Heaven! he is hurt—he does not hear me!” she murmured,
laying back the hair from his forehead and pressing her lips upon it
wildly and repeatedly. Harry’s eye-lids remained hermetically sealed,
but a queer, comical expression began to play around the corners of his
mouth, and was about to betray him, when he suddenly opened his eyes,
with a look of triumphant impudence, and broke into a peal of joyous
laughter.
Kate dropped his head with a movement of indignation and dismay—sprung
up—led her horse to the trunk of a fallen tree, just by, from which she
leaped into her saddle, and was off almost as soon as Harry had regained
his feet. Again the faithless Saladin left his master in the lurch, and
followed Kate, who went at a furious rate, never pausing nor looking
back; so the somewhat discomforted Harry was obliged to foot it home, a
matter of “twa mile and a bittock,” as they say in Scotland.
That night Kate had a headache, and did not appear at the tea-table, nor
join the evening circle, where poor Harry was cross-questioned without
mercy on the strange circumstance of having been left behind both by his
horse and lady-fair.
“Ah, Kate,” said I, as I joined her at the close of the evening, “I have
something to tell you. While you were dressing for your ride to-day,
Harry called me into his room to show me that picture—and will you
believe, it is only a bad portrait of _yourself_! Harry sketched it long
ago for Louisa Grant, but has lately been making some important
alterations, and now he thinks it strikingly like you. I really wonder
we did not see the resemblance; the poetry was meant for you alone.”
“Oh, Grace, Grace!” murmured Kate, in a bitter tone, “if you had only
told me this before I went to ride!”
At breakfast, the next morning, there was no Harry—two hours before he
had whistled his dog and shouldered his gun, and set out on a crusade in
turkey-land. But long before noon the young hunter returned, and
inquiring for Kate, was directed to the library, where she sat, striving
to drive away her sad mood, according to her own cheerful philosophy, by
light reading. She had chosen “Hood’s Prose and Verse,” instead of Miss
Landon’s Poems, which stood on the same shelf.
Again I must tell the story as it was told to me.
As Harry entered, Kate coloring deeply, started up—stood still a
moment, and then sat down again, uttering not a word. Harry, seating
himself near her, took off his hunting-cap, ran his fingers nervously
through his hair, and in a tolerably steady voice began,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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