Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 April 1886 — THE WIDOW DURRELL'S MATRIMONIAL PLANS. [ARTICLE]

THE WIDOW DURRELL'S MATRIMONIAL PLANS.

BY MISS H. MARIA GEORGE.

“l’m sure, Carrie, I don’t know what better you could do,” said the Widow Dorrell, with a sigh, as she stood in the “smokehouse.” or summer-kitchen, one May morning, with her sleeves rolled up, doing the serin-weekly churning; “and he’s a good match enough for any girl in town.” “But, mother,” said Carrie, throwing her sun-bonnet on a chair and proceeding to wash the greens she had just picked, “how am Ito know what his intentions are? He may not want to marry at all.” “There, that’s like you, Cad Durrell.” groaned the widow. “Not know what his intentions are, and he’s been coming here off and on these six months. Of course, Tom is anxious to marry. He’s got a large farm, and ain’t that kind of a fellow to fool round as some I have known.” “That may be, mother; but, supposing Tom Stapleton don’t care anything about me, but does care for somebody else.” Mrs. Durrell stopped kneading the golden mass of butter, and looked her youngest daughter keenly in the face. All of the widow’s girls,and there were four sisters, were allowed to be comely maidens, but Carrie was decidedly the flower of the flock in • that respect, recalling Byron’s description of Dudu: “.Large, languid and lazy, And of a beauty that would drive you crazy.” She was tall and plump of form, with a velvet-complexioned face, soft, dreamy blue eyes, a tipped up, wicked little chin, lips just made to be kissed, and a swath of bronzy hair with sunlight shining in every fold and ripple, “Languid and lazy” she undeniably was—no vulgar haste about her. Her brisk, energetic mother had been heard more than once to wish that a wasp would sting Carrie; just to see if she con id get around any faster. A wasp never did sting Carrie, and she never got around any faster. “Who should he care for if it isn't you, I’d like to know, Cad Durrell?” ejaculated the widow, after a sharp glance. “If you wan’t so mortally slow yon might have been settled before this time, same as Phoebe and Sally Ann. But la! you’ll grow gray first.” A ripple of silvery laughter issued from the sweet red lips, and the bronzed head was tossed aloft in pretty scorn. “Why, mother Durrell, you certainly don’t wish me to marry a man who doesn’t want me! I think it’s Lu that Tom’s after, only he doesn’t dare speak out.” “Lu shant marry him. I’ll be bound,” cried her mother, hotly. “You know that all along I’ve planned for her to be 'Squire Raynor’s wife. She isn’t strong enough to do the drudgery of a farm.” “But she’s got faculty, you’ve always said that,” said Carrie, with a peculiar smile. “Yes, she’s got faculty, which youhain’t,” declared the widow, emphatically. “Her bread never burns and her cream’s sure to come butter. You never did have luck about such things” Of all human afflictions, a daughter who seemed to be created without the boon of “faculty” was the severest to a driving New England housewife like Mrs Polly Durrell A slim, gypsy-looking girl, with great dark eyes like sloes, and wearing a crimson shawl coquettishly over her black hair, entered the kitchen at that instant. “Mother, ’Squire Raynor’s asked me, and I am going ” Mrs. Durrell looked up eagerly and a Xarm flush crept into her matronly face. “Of course you accepted him,” she exclaimed. “Oh, I don’t mean that he has popped the question,” said the girl, looking down with a pretty flush. “Why, mother, how you have upset me. As if he could ever care anything for me. He’s only asked me to teach the summer term of school. Do you think I can?” “Of course you’ll take it,” cried the widow. “Why, it’s just the chance you need above all others, and, Lu, if you are smart you can be mistress of Raynor Hall before Christmas.” Lu blushed hotly and drooped her scarlet face, while she gave her shoulders a very slight upward motion. She would have cared more for a look from a certain pair of eyes than for all ’Squire Raynor’s wealth, his big house, conservatories, and all; but she did not care to tell her mother so. “I think I will try the school at any rate,” she said, after a pause, very thoughtfully. “It is eighteen dollars a month and board,

and I can walk the distance from here easily enough.” And without waiting to hear her mother’s answer she tripped away merrily humming “Auld Lang Syne.” “Don’t you see how luck favors Lu?” said the widow. “She will win the ’Squire, and I don’t know of anybody else who’d make him happier or a more careful housekeeper. I’ve always said she was cut out for a lady. Now, Cad, if you will bring Stapleton to terms, I can go down to my grave feeling easy, as knowing that you are all settled.” “(/h, mother, you mustn’t say anything about dying yet awhile,” cried Carrie, affectionately. “And I am sure you need not worry about either Lou or me. We can take care of ourselves, I am sure.” “No woman can take care of herself,” declared Mrs. Durrell, strongly. “She needs a husband and —and children. I don’t believe in single women at all. But it’s, no use talking with you, I suppose. Some folks don’t know what’s good for them,” with which she gave a ball of butter a finishing slap, as if to give emphasis to her words. Carrie quietly raised the greens in the water and smiled placidly, her temper not at all disturbed by her mother s imputation concerning her perceptions; but the widow would have had an anoplectic fit if she had known all that was in her daughter’s mind. Lu’s school began Monday of the second week after the conversation in the summer kitchen, and Mrs. Durrell was never so proud in her life as when she saw her favorite daughter ride away with ’Squire Raynor in his elegant canopied phaeton. “Mark my word, she’ll ride in that as her own before the year's out,” she said to Carrie, “unless she’s lost her faculty.” Mrs. Durrell was one of those who thought that faculty had quite as much to do in getting folks married a-; sentiment. Faculty ruled the world to her mind. Some three weeks passed, when one night Lu came home with a flushed face and anxious eyes. “Well, it’s my last day of school,” she said, as she sat down with a sigh in the large rocker by the window and fanned herself. “Why, what is the matter, Lu?” asked her sister. “ ’Squire Raynor’s two boys are sick, and several others have left on account of sickness, and he told me this noon that he did not deem it advisable to continue the term any longer. It is small-pox* so Dr. Jones says, and there’s a terrible panic.” “Dear me, the small-pox! Why, that’s perfectly awful!” explained Mrs. Durrell. “Like enough we shall all have it, now you have been exposed. There’s nothing like using every precaution,” and the widowcaught up the camphor bottle, and sprinkled them generously with its contents. “I do hope it won't spread,” murmured Lu. “I don’t want to be pock-marked for life.” “Goodness knows, we don’t want to be down with it, and haying coming on, and all the hired help io take care of,” ejaculated her mother. “I can stand somethings, but I couldn’t that. I wonder howit happened to break out in the ’Squire’s family.” “He and little Frankie were in Boston two weeks ago, and I suppose the boy took the contagion, some way. It seems real hard for the ’Squire. All his servants have left him and he cannot get. anyone to act as nurse for love or money. Not even Paulina Heath, the Poor Farm Hospital nurse, will risk her life at any price. He offered me five dollars a week to go up and do what I could.” “As if his children were anything to you!” cried the widow. “You'dbeen sure to have caught the disease and perhaps have dited with it. You showed your good sense in refusing to go.” “Mother,” said Carrie, very abruptly, “I don’t think it’s Christian to let those children lie and suffer and not stir hand or foot to save them. I think I shall go to Raynor Hall.” Mrs. Durrell gave a gasp of incredulous amazement. “You go out to nursing’Squire Raynor’s children? You must-be crazy, Cad Durrell!” “I never was more sane in my life,” replied Cad. “If he succeeds in getting no one else I shall go to-morrow. I am sure it is my duty.” “Fiddlesticks! It's a duty to take proper care of one’s self, and if you go, up there I shall know- you are not in your right mind.” And Mrs. Durrell leaned back with a hollow groan, looking as if she really had doubts of her daughter’s sanity. But Carrie was in earnest, and the next morning she went up to the great house, which seemed very still and deserted. “Don’t ever come back till you have had it and got well, for I won’t have you in the house. It’s running plump in the face of Providence, and that I don’t believe one has a right to,” said Mrs. Durrell, as Carrie rode away. They were cold, cruel words, but the widow’ considered them eminently generous, and practical. “Of course, she’ll have it and die with it; it will be just her luck. I’d just as soon go and take a dose of strychnine.” Carrie had but little time to think of herself or anything else, save her two little patients. It was new work for her, but she had a kind heart and she was strong, and those qualities went a great ways. She made no mistakes, and she had a certain reserve power that made her services doubly valuable. Frank and Harry Raynor were very, very ill, and for days there was small hope of their recovery. ’Squire Raynor hardly left the darkened chamber, and only to the nurses and the old physician did he speak a word. At the end of three weeks, however, the disease turned and the doctor pronounced the children out of danger “It is owing more to your care than the doctor’s skill, Miss Durrell,” said the ’Squire. “How shall I ever repay you?” “You have paid me for my work; as for the rest, it was my duy,” said Carrie. “The others did not think it was their duty to risk their lives to save an old man’s two motherless boys,” returned ’Squire Raynor, sternly; “why should you have done so? You are an angel and ” “Oh, no, ’Squire Raynor, only a- very common piece of clay,” answered Carrie, hastening away with scarlet cheeks. But two or three weeks afterward, when Frank and Harry were out at play for the first time on the sunny lawn, and Carrie sat in the porch doing crochet work, the ’Squire eame out and gazed thoughtfully at the picture. “Boys,” said he, at length, “how would you like a mother, a real nice, new mother?” “Oh, ever so much, papa!” cried Harry; “that is, if we could have Mi«s Durrell.” “Oh, you silly boy,” began Came, but she was interrupted by the ’Squire. “You have heard their verdict, Miss Durrell—

Carrie. You can make them happy, and—and I love you. Will you not stay, Carrie. my Carrie, and be mistress of Raynor Hall?” And before she had spoken he knew by the look in her eyes that ehewould not refuse him. Mrs. Durrell was thunder-struck when she learned the news. To think that after all Carrie, who had no tact, no faculty at all, should have, won rich ’Squire Raynor, the great man of the village. “Why,” as she expressedit, “it beat all.” But the surprises were not all over, for Lu plucked up courage the same night to tell her mother that young Stapleton had proposed, and that, with her consent, they were to be married at Christmas. “Go along and marry him if you want to,” cried her mother. “Girls are the queerest creatures! I really believe you two have been conspiring against youi; poor mother, who had the trouble of bringing you into the world and has always done so much for you.” “Why, mother,-it is no such thing,” said Lu, going and kissing her. “Only we cannot send our hearts where ‘we will. Love goes, you know, it does not come by calling.” For all this, however, Mrs. Durrell insists that her two youngest daughters most willfully and unwarrantably defeated her matrimonial plans.— Chicago Ledger.