"Alice May, and Bruising Bill" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ingraham Joseph Holt)

Perhaps the curiosity, raillery, and playful interference of others often
induces a young girl to think seriously of the individual about whom she is
teased, and to believe she is in love with him, whom perchance she has met but
once; when, in reality, if he had not been named to her again after the first
accidental meeting, she would never have given him place in her thoughts. This
was not, however, the case with lovely Alice May. While she is confidentially
confessing her meeting with him to her young friend, Auna Linton, who had
followed her to her chamber and playfully teared her secret out of her, we will
give it to the reader in language of our own.
About a month previous to the period on which our briefly-sketched story is
opened, a young gentleman of fortune, recently a graduate of Harvard, whose name
is Edward Orr, and who was a native of Boston, was one morning riding on
horseback, as was his favorite custom, in the direction of Mount Auburn, when
seeing a funeral train coming out of the arched gateway, he was prompted by the
momentary impulse to alight and enter. Without any definite object in view, save
to enjoy in the quiet of his soul the solemn repose of the place, he wandered on
from tomb to tomb, through dell and winding walk, enjoying the romantic
seelusion and experiencing that calm and intellectual delight, (in which the
more hallowed feelings always might,) which the solemn loveliness of the place
inspires in every properly cultivated mind.
Suddenly he emerged from a narrow path, thickly shaded by larch trees, upon a
secluded spot in the most lovely and quiet portion of the cemetery. Before him,
within a few paces, was a young girl arranged in simple white, her straw hat
fallen back from her head, her hands folded before her, and her eyes directed
towards a name upon a small, exquisitely sculptured monument of white marble.
The grace of her fingers, the gentle earnestness of her bending attitude, the
rich beauty of her face, on which rested an expression of intellectual
admiration in which much of the heart was visible, charmed, surprised,
enraptured him. The dark trees were bending over the spot; the white marble rose
from the verdant sward in strange beauty amid the dark shades cast by them; and
she, in her white robe bending over it, seemed like an angel watching the tomb
to receive and bear heavenward the `arisen,' when at length the trump of Gabriel
should rend it open.
He feared to advance lest he should intrude upon hallowed ground. His eye fell
upon the inscription, upon which her soft dark eyes were gazing so thoughtfully.
It was simply.
"To my Wife Mary. 20.
`What beautiful and touching eloquence in those few simple words,' she said in a
low sweet voice that came from her heart, while he saw that a tear glistened
from her cheek. `There is a sad story of love aud hope and joy and woe and
death, couched beneath them. How perfect the taste of the husband who in one
simple line records the volumes of his love. Thus would I be buried. My memory
graven on the hearts of those I love, my name simply carved on my tomb.'
At this moment her eyes were uplifted with the consciousness of being intently
observed, and they met those of the young man, whose earnest admiring gaze, was
not difficult to be translated by any maiden. She slightly blushed, and instead
of flying or betraying any foolish weakness, smiled with great sweetness, and
with a just propriety that charmed him.
`I fear, sir, you have heard some pretty nonsense. But I was not aware I had an
auditor. Yet what can be conceived more touching than what has brought forth my