Indianapolis Journal, Indianapolis, Marion County, 28 March 1885 — Page 9

Printed by Special Arrangement with the Author. iilfl PEBBLES A STORY. BY HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD. {Copyrighted 1885, by the Author—All Rights Reserved.] A lovely creature to look at was Miss Emeline —a skin of rose and snow, eyes blue as melting sapphires, under long black lashes and brows of delicate "ark arch, such a mouth as seldom draws its scarlet curves to kisses, teeth like strong pearl, a straight line of a nose, an oval line of a cheek, a cleft chin —and when she smiled, if you had a heart in your t it could not help thrilling, be the thrill ever so slight It was a perfect shape, too, that she betrayed when lifting that white hand of hers to arrange the masses of her golden brown hair, breaking everywhere into waves, and everywhere out of waves into curls; and if the gesture brought into fuller light a twisted thread of gold on that white hand, that was here engagement ring to John Faunce. Miss Emeline had gone to the old house on the hill as companion to poor Miss Martha, the half invalid aunt and grandaunt of the rather gay family there, and, of course, she had won everybody at first with her beauty, and afterward with her willing sweetness —a sweetness that made her always ready, always pleasant, patient, gracious, and on the alert to render# life smooth to all around her. Perhaps they felt a little more warmly toward her than they otherwise would have done, because in becoming the companion of Miss Martha she took quite a burden off their shoulders, and they were so glad to secure somebody to do that that they were prepared to treat her like a princess. And if with the first glimpse of her loveliness they were half enraptured, on a further acquaintance with her grace, her sense, her kindness, they surrendered altogether, and made her more of a pet than under any other circumstances the typical companion would have been made by the rather high and mighty Hollingsworths, none of whom had earned their own living from tim e immemorial. It was Miss Martha who first observed the ring on the pretty hand, and the anxiety about the mail which Miss Euieline manifested every day, and her nightly occupation of letter-writing for an hour in the boudoir, when Miss Martha, at 9 o'clock, had been safely put away in bed in the adjoining room, and after the letter-writing, the standing at the glass door looking out at the night, or the quiet stealing through that door to the balcony and the old vine-wreathed flight of steps that led down into the garden. “Tell me all about it now,” Miss Martha had said one day. “To whom is the little letter? And from whom is the big one? Is he tall or short? Is he good and plain, or bad and taking? How long have you known him? What is his name?” • “He is tall,” said Miss Emeline. “Broad shouldered, then, I hope?” “And fair.” “Plain, did you say?” “But wholesome. He has white teeth and a good smile.” “Very well, as far as it goes. And his business!” “He is a clerk in an institution, where probably he can remain as long he lives. He has S9OO a year. His name is John Faunce.” “I knew his name was John. I was sure of it Johns always look like s that. My cousin John did. Poor John! W T eil, you are going to marry him? 7 ’ “I suppose so.” “And live on SOOO a year. I’m sure I don’t see how. 9 “Very easily. I have saved almost enough of my pay to buy a little home in the suburbs, and if we get a piece of garden ground with it, and keep a cow, it will make our expenses small. You see I was a farmer's daughter, and know how to live inexpensively.” “But, having lived in wealthy families, you have become used to very different ways. It won’t come easily at ali to you to get up and build fires, and sweep, and cook, and scrub, and scour. Your hands won’t be as white as they are now.” “No, I know it,” said Miss Emeline, glancing at the white hands. “But poor people can’t choose. At any rate, it will be my own home, and a certainty, and a perraaneney. And if I don’t marry John, 1 shall have to be at other people's beck and call all my life. *And if I fall sick I have nothing to do but go to a hospital. And John is very fond of me.” “And you are not very fond of John?” “I should be a wretch if I were not fond of him. But he knows that I don’t pretend “Bo as much in love as he is. That’s bad.” “He eared about me you know, a couple of years before I ever knew of his existence.” “I know? How'should I know?’ “Well, you do now,” said Miss Emeline, laughing. “He used to watch me going by, and at church, and all. But he felt so—^so —I may as well tell you—if you wont think strangely—he said he felt as if it were a sort of a sacrilege to try and know me.” “I don’t think strangely of that I think its beautiful. ” “But be did know me, after that, a long time before he asked me to marry him. He had so little; and he saw me in circumstances where I seemed to have so much. He didn’t know that mv fine clothes were the gifts of my fine ladies. One time I was out of a situation, and was waiting at my boarding place, when I fell sick. I was taken suddenly, before I knew and nobody about was acquainted with my affairs or that I had any little sum of money laid by, so I bad no nurse, and no doctor, and was quite out of my head. But he discovered it, and sent a nurse; and sent the best physician in town, and hung around the house like a night watchman. And when I was better he sa;d he only wished ,he had the right to care for me always. And I was very weak and poorly—and I said he mighit-” “Ydip wouldn’t have said it, then, if you hadn’t been weak and poorly,” said Miss Martha, snapping her little black eyes. But 31is!| t Emeline did not resent the remark. She was telling a matter of fact history. “Well, lamin my tyrenty seventh year. And although I have been about in great families so much, I have had no opportunity of doing better. The gentlemen of those families are everything they ought to be in their manners toward me; but, when all is said, they regard me as a menial, as their sisters’, or mothers’, or aun#’ servant; and they are not marrying servants just now. And John—John is so good, and loves me so much —and. at any rate it is a sort of reat, and a home of my own, and I do respect him and regard him and all that; and I feel tenderly toward him.” “Poor John!" said Miss Martha. And in a

moment or two she added sharply: “You’ve no right to marry him; you don’t carb a penny for him. He is a good fellow. He deseryes better things.” “I—pity him.” “Pity!” said Miss Martha. “I suppose your letters are full of pity—the letters that through the arch I see you writing in here every night.” “They are very calm and friendly letters. I tell him my surroundings and happenings; I discuss the news of the day; I—” “Are his letters calm and friendly V “I wish they were. They are a great deal too fervent” “And when do you expect to make this precious marriage?” “It is precious to me Miss Martha, whatever you may think. It is all I have to look forward to, little as it is. Some time in the fall, I suppose. I don’t let myself dwell upon it,though. You will think me very inconsistent and contradictory—but, but —I just a little dread it.” “Os course you do. Anybody would dread marry a man she didn’t love.” “I do love him. I love him very much. I want to make him happy. I should grieve to hurt him in any way. He is often a comfort to me to think of among all thegay people who care nothing at all about me. Then I think of him, and I keep my thoughts to myself, and then I almost love him as 1 should love the ideal I used to cherish.” “H'm” said Miss Martha. “I don’t suppose it makes any difference really, in the long run. After the season of romance is over, you love one sort of husband perhaps as well as another. I shall probably love John as well in a year or two as I should have loved my ideal.” “Well, I must say you aro the coolest specimen!” said Miss Martha; and indignation in John's behalf refused her further words strong enough for exoression. But when Miss Martha dropped hints of tho matter iu the family circle, those who had not heard the cool calmness of Miss Emeline’s state ments failed to see it in the same light as their querulous and invalid aunt did, and felt that they had a sort of drama going on among them, teased the heroine of it about her letters, sent them up to her under trays of flowers, made a great matter of the mails, construed her remarks, as translated through Miss Martha’s alembic, only into modest maidenliness, at last talked openly upon the subject, begged her to send for John to pass some days with them, threatened to go and bring him, cut advertisements from the papers of pretty suburban places; and Mr. Hollingsworth promised her a cow, and hi3 wife promised pecks of garden seeds, and Martha was to embroider her a portiere for the little parlor that was to be, and Teresa thought she might frame some of her water-colors for the walls, and they even began to talk with her about wedding clothes. “I will give you the nrettiest wedding in the world if you are married here,” said Mrs. Hollingsworth. “And she will be a perfectly lovely bride, all in drifting veils and lace,” said Teresa. “It would be a folly,” said the serious Miss Emeline. “I should never wear the dress again —and a pretty brown silk, or olive green or gray, and a bonnet would be best.” “I don’t suppose John will mind,” said Mariau. “But it seems a shame that he should’nt see you in white and orange blossoms and the veil. And if you had a summer wedding, with the house full of flowers, all sorts of roses, honeysuckles —■” : “I don’t imagine that I shall. Miss Martha will want me at least all summer, and I should not think of leaving a good engagement for the sake of marrying. John is always there, poor, dear fellow, and it will be better for both of us to have all we can earn.” “Well, October is as good as June for a wedding.” said Teresa. We will have stalks of corn bound about the pillars of the piazza, and huge vases of golden rod and asters, and boughs, and boughs of scarlet maple, and brown and yellow beech and red oak in the house, and it will be one of the heavenly Indian summer days that lose their way out of June, all balms and balsams, and blue bloom on the hills.” “Ob, yes; the middle of October.” said Marian, “and cousin Matilda will have come back to Aunt Martha from California by that time.” “But another engagement may open," said Miss Emeliue. “I don’t eare if one does.” said Mrs. Hollingsworth. “I won’t have John treated so; he shan’t be made to wait any longer than October, and in October that wedding shall be.” “Well,” said Miss Emeline, “perhaps so. I’m sure you’re all very good; but John hasn’t said anything about October in particular, aud one can’t fix a day to be marriea till one is asked, you know,” and tbeu she heard Miss Martha call "her. So the household went on. and it was warm and spicy July when Cousin Bert eame, anoffieer of the regular army on a furlough—the first considerable furlough for many years—the idol, he, of all his houseful of cousins. “This is Miss Emeline, Colonel Nichols,” began Miss Martha, in stately fashion. “And we expect you to be as fond of her as we are,” said the mischievous Marian, whose spirits often ran away with her. “I shall be glad to be allowed the privilege,” said the Colonel. And Emeline, all blushes, looked that moment like nothing else than the Italian Aphrodite, who, “Fresh as the foam. new-bathed in Paphian wells. With r>sy, slender fingers backward drew From her warm brow and bosom her deep hair. Ambrosial, golden, round her lucid throat And shoulder.” “It was a very unfortunate beginning,” said Miss Martha, afterward, to her great-niece. “There is no sort of sense in making Bert familiar with that girl. For my part, I wish she were out of the house, and I shall write to Matilda to hurry home. Marry John in July or in October, whenever she will, I’ve done with her. 1 like warm-blooded animals!” Miss Martha might not have thought Miss Emeline so cold-blooded, however, had she seen her one morning, some three weeks after that introduction, walking in the wood, for she was always allowed a couple of hours in the morning for her own recreation, remaining up-stairs with Miss Martha till after 2 o’clock with that exception, and retiring up-stairs with her again at 7. She was not alone in the woods by any means. Col. Nichols lay in the flickering sun and shadow, upon a bed of moss, not far away, where he tossed himself, but she had paused in the full sunshine that fell across the stem of a white birch against which she leaned, and all her wondrous white beauty, all the gold of the hair, all the azure of the eyes, the rose of the cheek, shone as if it were the incarnation of that sunbeam. Something of the sort it was evident Col. Nichols thought. “Step out of the sunbeam, please,” he said. “It is too dazzling. You are too dazzling. You will melt back into it presently and return to your first elements.” “My first elements? And what are they?” “How should I know? The things that make up your enchantment” “You mustn’t talk to me so,” she said half sadly, with downcast eyes that left only those dark-fringed, wide, white, waxen lids to view, but stepping into the shadows. “You make me forget that 1 am only an upper servant. “ You will not let any one forget it!” said the Colonel, a little hotly. “Look up,” ho said in a moment, “‘Upon her fids a hundred graces sat.’ If Belphoeoe had such eyelids as yours, she did not cast down her eyes too often, for fear of making havoc in men's hearts.” “I thought our compact was one of two friends,” said she. “Not one of—of—” “Two lovers, were you about to say?” asked the Colonel. “I am going back to the bouse,” said Miss Emeline, decidedly. “My mistress will be looking for me.” “I am going back, too,” said the Colonel, pulling up his lazy length. “But not by the same path,” said Miss Emeline, with dignity. “I may as well be perfectly frank,” she added. “Whether lam here in a menial capacity or not, this way in which you speak to me is exceedingly displeasing.” * “By George! You are frank. Tell mo where I offend and what has a menial capacity to do with it, anyway,” said he, bending his loftj bead toward her. “So you think it is agreeable to a man to be told that his manner of speech is exceedingly displeasing to a lady, or for a soldier to know' that he has made himself offensive to a woman.” He . was walking beside her as he talked. “1 never said you had made yourself offensive to me,” cried Emeline, with a half-despairing upward iook. Aud all of a sudden she had stepped behind the screen of a thicket of young beecnes and was lost to sight; and the Colonel, who otherwise might have followed in her despite, saw Miss Martha struggling with a huge umbrella that refused to preserve any sort of equilibrium, advancing down the main path on an errand of her own. This errand was to bring Miss Emeline her morning letter from John, as she took pains to explain to cousin Bert “John?'’ asked the ColoaeU with fine innocence.

THE INDIANAPOLIS JOURNAL, SATURDAY, MARCH 28, 188*5.

“You needn’t play off any of your pretenses on me, my dear,” said tbo outspoken old lady. “You know all about John. And you know that you are flirting with John's promised wife. Now, the girl herself isn’t worth a rush; and I can’t say that I care whether she comes ont of the business heart-whole or heart-hurt. But the man, her lover, her real lover.” “Os course you have more feeling 'ortho mist, Aunt Martha. You are like the little Scotch girl who wondered what made her brother John love the lassies so, when for her part she’d gie mair for the company of ain mon than for that of all tho lassies in Kilmarnock. ” “Bert, you grow no better as you grow older,” said Aunt Martha, with a loving glance at the haudsome fellow, in spite of her tone. “But yon ought to grow wiser. Don’t you see that this designing little minx looks at you as a good match.” “Me!” And accustomed to consider himself too impecunious to think seriously of marriage, and to be so considered by the gilded damsels of his acquaintance, the Colonel went off in a roar of laughter. “Yes. you. The man she is engaged to marry has S9OO a year. You have—how much? I don’t know; several times that sum. any way.” “Enough for one; not enough for two.” “You are an officer in tho army. To many girls that is equal to the title of a foreign nobleman. And then j r ou are one of ns, and we are fine folks in comparison with her little sphere; and life with us is mighty pleasant in comparison with her sphere; and if she once gets you compromised! Now, I have warned you fairly. But, if that is not sufficient, have some compassion on the man in the distance there. John Faunce, for whom this young woman does not care the snap of a finger, but who idolizes her, and whose heart will be broken by her treachery if you give her the chance. 1 won’t say but that possibly you strike her fancy as well as her better judgment, for she is simply possessed about you. That is apparent to anybody who stays :o regard her,* and whether it is vulgar or not for me to say it, it is much more vulgar, to my mind, dear, for you to be obliged to see it. Good morning to you!” And Aunt Martha turned back, the unsteady umbrella wobbling and lobbing about as she feebly went her way. Then Miss Emeline came out of the thicket laughing and blushing, and showing all her dimples, lovelier than ever by the contrast with the poor fellow, old Miss Martha and her sharp tongne. “What a fine opinion these good people have of me,” she said. “It is really interesting to know it, and to knowhow they walk in the dark. You understand me differently; you understand that our friendship is of a totally different cast.” “Why did you never tell me about John?” asked the Colonel, abruptly. “Why should I? Is not that something quite apart from our little understanding?” “But if people are to be only the best of friends, it seems to me that friends know when their friends are promised in marriage,” and there was ever so slight a flash in the Colonel’s dark eyes. Emeline looked at him a moment. “I mean to marry John Faunce,” she said then, slowly. “I have promised him. And I shall not break his heart, let it cost me what it will. But if I* thought that prevented my having other interests, having a friend” —her voice trembled, and tears were trembling out of her eyes like broken brilliants. “Good heavens!” cried Colonel Nichols. “You are enough to make a marble statue throb.” And they walked on a little while iu silence. “Well,” said Colonel Nichols after a while, “I must be off to-day. lam bound for the 3almon in the Restigouche, and have delayed too long already. I wish —I wish I had John’s courage!” And then they came in sight of the house, and overtook Miss Martha, who gave Miss Emeline her letter, and they went in together. “Well,” said Miss Martha, when she and her companion were alone, and as the latter was assiduously and gently putting the hot water cloths on tbo head of the little invalid, for whom walking iu the morning sun had been something too much, “as you say, you write everything to John, I suppose you write him of encounters in the wood with an officer of cavalry, of strolls there, of the horse back lesson the other day?” “If you mean do I speak of meeting Colonel Nichols in my morning walk, or of the little kindness I received from him, Miss Martha, your suppositions are correct. I do.” “Humph!” said Miss Martha, and shut her eyes with pain again. But Miss Emeline did. She threw, of course, the most innocent light in the world on the little transactions; but, innocent or not, it was enough to disturb John in his fancied security. The letters, that came then to Miss Emeline were impassioned, tender, imploring lettors that might have moved any woman’s heart, if sho had one. They were exceedingly irritating to Miss Emeline. Why John should take just this time, when she was in trouble herself, to make himself disagreeable, she cduld not imagine. However, she answered them. She told John he was a goose, that Colonel Nichols was only a transient visitor at the place, and had gone off with bis salmon flies, and that she hoped soon to he at liberty from this imprisonment, shut in by mountains and woods, and that she was his loving little Emeline. If these letters contented John at all, it was because he was so eager to be contented, and fancied that he read her shy and maiden modesty between the lines. If they did not content him altogether, he said to himself that he knew he was unw’orthy of her; he ought not to expect unbounded passion of such a being; but if ever he possessed her, all in all, if he could not make her love him as he loved her —no, oh, not as he loved her, but love him tenderly and truly—it would be because there was no strength in bis purpose, no vitality in his worship. Yet still, somewhere down in the bottom of the cup, was a little sting and tang—a bitter flavor that nothing else had placed there but mention of Colonel Nichols. He ought to bo very happy, he said to himself as he went about his duties, but the truth was he was very unhappy. It was of no use for him to picture to himself any longer the little home they were to have, set in blossoming fruit trees, with its flowers beneath the windows and about the doors, with Emeline going and coming, with life an absolute contentment, an unbroken security—somehow it all seemed vague, and visionary, and unreal now—the possibility of its insecurity had made it insecure. He even hesitated to trouble her with iteration of his hopes for October. Os course Miss Emeline noticed the absence of these hopes and of all allusion to October. She was hardly fine enough herself to understand it. But it made no particular difference; she could not leave Miss Martha until her cousin Matilda came, and that coming was now postponed till after cold weather. And then, too, Colonel Nichols was to return for a week or two in the early art of October, before going back to his regiment. Meanwhile Miss Martha was far from well, and was exacting enough to try the patience of any but so sweet, so tranquil a person as Miss Emeline. She had run out. for a breath of air just at nightfall. Marian offering to hold Miss Martha’s crewels in her place, when she saw a figure approaching under the arch of the avenue, and fled across the path like a startled fawn; and when she went out to the tea table with Miss Martha, Colonel Nichols offered his great aunt an arm on the other side, with a glance that shot involuntary meanings at Miss Emeline. How quickly some days go by, and how slowly others drag their length along. That fortnight was a dream in the night. Two or three times in its coarse she forgot her daily letter to John. Mrs. Hollingsworth and the girls, making ready for a festival they were to attend in town, threw her, in her morning hour of recreation, a great deal alone with the solitary guest; and after Miss Martha was asleep tho night was her own —whose affair was it if she stepped through the balcony window, and down the old outside flight of stairs, and found anybody waiting there with his cigar, and took a somewhat swift stroll under the chilling stars? And yet there was no exterior change in their relations; she was merely oxygenizing her blood after reading aloud two hours in a stuffy, stifling room; he was—well, he was tired of Marian’s music, and Teresa’s painting, and their mother’s lectures, and the confusion of tho boys and tho younger brood, and was taking a turn by himself. But time comes to the end of his journey at last. Colonel Nichols’s furlough was over in one day more. Marian and Teresa and Mrs. Hollingsworth bade him good bye tho day before, for they were going to the golden wedding some fifty miles away, for which, and for whose accompanying festivities, they had been making their preparations, and the boys had all gone up the mountain to camp once more before returning to the pavement*. Miss Martha was left in sole possession; and Miss Martha kept her companion well employed till long after dark, and struggled with her own somnolence, even then, till she was forced to succumb. There was no need that evening for Miss Emeline to throw a shawl about her and take the night air, now so cool that the very stars shivered in it; there was a fire on the library hearth; the Colonel sat be-

fore it with his cigar. Why should she not go down and say good-bye—he would be off at daylight? She did. How pleasant the room was with all its rich ruby shadows, iu the glow of the fire and the sconces. The curtains had not been dropped, and one saw the moon banging on the horn of the mountain in a sky like sheeted sapphire. How serene and safe one felt, breathing the perfume of the hot house flowers upon the console, and hearing the shriek of the engine as it went on after dropping some passenger at the little station at the foot of the hill, echoing and reechoing with suggestions of all the chill and vast outdoors. Ah, yes, there could be no doubt about it, homes like these were pleasanter than little seven-by-nine.cottages in city suburbs, the whole of one of which might be set down in this spacious room. And the man sitting there with the light of the flickering fire on his face, with the purple wreath of smoke winding up between his fingers—if one could but have an ideal, this courtly gentleman, this gracious man of superb soldierly bearing—ah, well, it must be confessed, here was something very different from John Faunce’s plain, blunt face and ways. But of what use was it for her to recognize ail this? Colonel Nichols gave no responsive sign. There was no more of the warmth of the summer in his manner, of the half suppressed passion of the autumn strolls under the chilly stars. He was singularly reserved and still to-night. “Well,’’ she said at last, rising from the depths of the velvet chair, whose crimson reflections contrasted so with the pearly skin and golden hair that lay against them, “I suppose this is the end of our little compact of good-fellowship. We shall probably never meet again, and so our friendship dies to-night. This is the last of earth, it dies content, makes all the other dying speeches of pleasant people.” Another woman might not have liked the dark gleam in Col. Nichols’s glowing eye3. “Good-night,” she said, “and good-bye. You are almost dead withsleep, I have bored you so. Pleasant dreams.” And without offering her hand, or approaching him, she was gone. And was this to be the end? Then let the wiles and schemes of all artifice go to naught! It was an hour later; the cahdles had burned low in the sconces, but the fire-light still flashed and faded through the room. Colonel Nichols still sat there gazing into it. There came a soft step on the carpets, like that of a cat, and a figure gowned in white slipped up the room, deposited a letter in the drawer of the escritoire from which the morning mail was always collected, turned to go back, and confronted him, started, uttered a low quick cry, half swerved and stopped again, caught by Colonel Nichols’s waylaying hand. It was Emeline, in the white ruffled wrapper in which she looked like a white rose, and with all the wealth and magnificence of her hair in tumbling ripples and masses of gold fallen about her. If, in this disarray, Einelinedid not know that she was as ravishingly beautiful as any Lois or Lolage of them all it was because no mirror could reflect tho half of such beauty. “I —I thought you had gone to your room, she murmured. “I had a letter to mail. I—” “Never mind the why and therefore,” said the Colour’ bending over her. “It is enough that you are here, and that good fortune made me ‘stay building my dreams by the lire. I thought you never would leave me so. I have been waiting for you to come and say good bye—if we must part, at least to take the sting from parting. What do you mean,” he cried* suddenly, his tone changing.” what do you mean by coming down here at this hour, in this guise? Do you know how beautiful you are? What was that I heard you reading to my aunt. “ ‘A man had gi v ©n all other bliss, And all his worldly worth for this, To waste his whole heart in one kiss Upon her perfect lips.’ ” She was close beside him, her quick sighs heaving, her heart throbbing, her eyes, those tender, deep and splendid eyes, hesitating, looking up in one appealing glance and falling; and then his arms were about her, h'is breath fanned her cheek, his lips had touched her lips, and it seemed to her had drawn her soul out after them. There came, just at that moment, a sharp and swift succession of strokes upon the pane, a handful of pebbles, a whirl of dead autumn leaves, a belated bird flying southward and striking the lighted glass, a shower of hail. Startled, Emeline sprang aside. “A flaw of wind rustling the old wisteria’s rays,” said the Colonel, walking to the window and pausing half-way. “Well, Lilith was Adam’s first wife, they say. and you are enough to mako a man forget his soul aud his honor and the rights of all other men!” And without another word he had stalked from the room and up they stairway, and had slammed his door behind him. It was all over now. She had done her worst and failed. They were half-sodden eyes that, in the gray of the morning, saw tho’ tall, erect shape stalk down the hill to the station, old Paul ami young Paul following with a wilderness of traps. Miss Emeline got through the day somehow; and by the next nightfall she was’ able to recollect that there was John left, at any rate. And then Mrs Hollingsworth and the young ladies were at home again, with tales of the splendors of the golden wedding and all the rest, and the gay campers came down from the mountain, and the house overflowed once more with life and cheer. “What is the matter with Miss Emeline?’’ asked Teresa. “She looks as if the end of the world had come.” “She has missed her letter from John,” said Marian. “She hasn’t heard for two days.” Presently it was three days, four days, a week. “What on earth has happened to John? Do you suppose he is ill?” asked Marian. “Is he vexed? Have you refused to let him name the day himself? You used to hear so regularly that it seemed as though the United States mail was meant for nothing but to carry your letters! What under the sun can be the trouble? Do you know, Miss Emeline, I feel as interested as if it were the last page of any novel that some one had torn out.” And then was off with some new fancy. “What on earth has happened to John?” mocked Miss Martha, looking up from her crocheting and going back to it again, while her listener started as though one struck her. “I shouldn’t be surprised if he were looking iu at the window last Tuesday night!” But whether grown something desperate with hope deferred and heart-destroying doubt, John Faunce had been the personage put off at the mountain station when the engine went echoing and re-echoing its way northward, and John Faunee’s aßgry and unconscious hand it was that had cast those pebbles rattling against the pane like bullets, Miss Emiiine never knew'. There never came to her another letter from John Faunce. Nor did any letter ever come at all to her from Miss Martha’s nephew, although the family, of coui'se, heard that he was having his fill of excitement of an Indian campaign, in which lesser things were all forgotten. And even when they were back in town again at last, no John Faunce came to welcome Miss Emeline; and by and by the family in general referred to it no -more. She sat dismally one moi’ning, with folded hands on her knees, pale aud weary, and seeing her life stretch before her —loveless, homeless, with only the work of her hands to-day, and to-morrow unprovided for. “Humph!” said Miss Martha, surveying her with even more disapproving eyes than usual, and feeling a stream of incoherent old saws bubble up to her lips. “There are some things it is wise to remember, handy to have by you, like eastoria and cosmoline. ‘lt is well to be off with the old love before you get on with the new, is one of them.’ For between two stools one is apt to fall to the floor. And people who look into a lighted room from the outside do not always look through a glass darkly!” Inoculation of Tubercles. Medical Record. A healthy girl, a cook, broke a glass and ran a splinter into her middle finger. The glass was one used by her employer, who at the time was dying of phthisis, in which to expectorate. A nodule of granular matter formed and was removed, and eventually it was found necessary to amputate the finger and remove the swollen glands of the elbow and the arm pit. All the parts removed showed tubercular degeneration and contained bacilli. Thus, whether the bacillus is cause, effect, or neither, it is evident that tubercular poison is communicable. General Stewart as a Horseman. New York Field. General Sir Herbert Stewart, the English commander, who lately died of his wounds in the Soudan, was the best foot-ball player and cricketer at the college—Winchester, where he was educated. He was also one of the best men in the saddle in England, and it was he who, with 100 lancers and dragoons, outrode all the rest of the British cavalry, who after the battle of Telel Kebir, galloped on to Cairo, where he personally received Arabi Pasha's submission and the keys of tho city.

WILL YOU MARRY ME? A Bureau for the Encouragement of Matrimony ana Divoree Courts. Boston Globe. You wouldn’t think, would you, that in a marrying nation like this, where the marrying epidemic is always prevalent, and takes in alike the infant of twelve and the infant of eighty years, th are would be any need of aids to matri mony? It was a shrewd Yankee who guessed that, marriage-bent as we are, there would be money in any contrivance that would slide the matrimonially inclined into the goal of their wishes at toboggan speed. So he established a matrimonial bureau. Os course, he came to Boston to do it. Boston is the home of extra women—that adjective is kinder, and “has a more tender meaning,” as Mr. Weller would say, than “su-per-flu-ous” —and therefore it was to be expected that a matrimonial bureau would be welcomed here with open arms—and pocket-books. Aod it has been. The matrimonial bureauist came to Boston; he opened the bureau and established a paper; he made money. If you were to go to No. Boylston street, you would see a modest-look-ing door-plate, bearing a common name. In answer to your ring a tidy young mulatto woman would open the door and show you upstairs into the back one of two large rooms thrown into one by sliding doors. The front one is a-parlor and the back one an office and reception room. They are furnished artistically in neutral tints, and look much more like the pleasant parlors of a prosperous home than the offices of a man of business. If you were to ask Mr. , who is the matrimonial bureau, a pleasant-lookiug mustached gentleman, dressed in a dark business suit, he would tell you that the bureau and the paper have been wonderfully successful. This is the only matrimonial bureau in the United States. There are two or three other papers which make more or less of a specialty of publishing matri-monially-intentioned advertisements. But this is the only establishment which, in addition to the paper, a so takes upon itself the kindly office of bringing into one another’s presence the people who are yearning for their affinities; only it doesn't guarantee the affinity. There are bureaus similar to this in Europe, London possessing one, and Paris two. Mr. has formed his very much after the plan of the mar-riage-slide. “I have been established only a year,” said Mr. the other day, “but the amount and success of my business already prove that there was a need of such an institution.” “What is your method of procedure!” “In the first, place, there is my paper. Wedding Bells. That is full all the time of advertisements for correspondents, either with or without a view to matrimony. I publish none that are not evidently genuine and from reliable people. The correspondences that begin in this way often result in marriage, though I do not always know of it. I lose all sight of the parties, unless they wish me lo know the result, after I have been instrumental in bringing them into correspondence. Then I keep also a large number of photographs of ladies and gentlemen who wish to marry, with all the points of their personal history which a seeker after a partner for life would want to know. I receive no one into this bureau who doesn’t mean business, and with whose personal character I am not well satisfied.” “Os course you are instrumental in working out a good many romances!” “Yes, I do help on a good many little romances. For instance, not long ago, a gentleman from the West came to me wanting a wife. I showed him my photographs and he selected one, that of a young Boston lady of family, well known in society, whose acquaintance I have had for a good many years, and known to be an admirable young woman. She has a neat little sum in her own right, and he is a well-to-do business mau. I introduced them, took him to call on her, and the other day they told me they were engaged.” “After how long an acquaintance!” “Ten days.” “Good material there for a suit in the divorce court, isn’t there!" Mr. laughed, but would admit nothing that would bring discredit upon the workings of his bureau. “Have you any idea of the number of people you instrumental in making happy, for a week at least, since you have been established!” “Not the slightest. I receive numbers of wedding cards and boxes of wedding cake. If I were* to eat it all I should expect to have chronic dyspepsia in a short time. But many of those who marry never take the trouble to let me know about it. I know, however, that on Thanksgiving day there were nine marriages the fruits of this bureau and Wedding Bells. And only last week two couples were married in my parlor, whom I had been instrumental in bringing together. ” “Does the greater part of your patronage come from New England*” “Naturally, a good deal of it would como from Boston and vicinity. But every State in the Union is represented among my patrons, and the paper has quite a large circulation through the West I received a subscription, the other day, from India, from an officer m the army there.” From the appearance of the paper Mr. is evidently making it a financial as well as a matrimonial success. The numbered advertisements show an average of about one hundred for each issue. There is queer reading in some of them. One young woman either has been sadly mixed up in her English or she should emigrate to Thibet, where custom smiled upon polyandry, for she requests a matrimonial correspondence with all “intelligent, honorable, strictly temperate American gentleman between the ages of twenty-five to thirty-five.” It is true she afterward limits the uumber to those who reside in Boston or vicinity, but if she is a loyal Boston maiden, of course she doesn't expect that to lessen the number. Another lady makes the stipulation, suggestive of cynicism on her part, that her correspondent must have a “'white heart to give in exchange for hor own.” Two “cowboys” in Wyoming want somebody to write to them “just for fun.” A young woman drops into poetry to make a yearning request for '‘a Boston beau,” and announces that she wants “his heart, not his c.ish.” The frequency and earnestness with which these maidens and widows specify the cardiac requisite, are equaled only by the emphasis with which the advertisers of the other sex demand, “good forms and lively dispositions." One young woman wants to correspond with “a moral young man, five and a half feet in height, for amusement” A young man in the West wants to correspond with a working girl. Os course he means business. The most striking thing about the advertisers is the innocence and apparent candor with which they use strings of adjeetives to describe their physical appearance, their mental capacities and their moral natures, quite oblivious of the fact that each one of them costs two cents each. On the whole, the matrimonial bureau looks as if it would result in the financial benefit of three parties—the manager of the bureau, the ministers and magistrates who perform the ceremonies, and the lawyers of the divorce courts. Aristotle’s Ideas of an Elephant. F. A. Fernald, in April Popular Science. Let us inquire how far Cuvier’s statement that “everywhere Aristotle observes facts with attention” is true. In describing the elephant Aristotle tells many things correctly, but some very incorrectly, so that it is a question whether he ever saw this animal in his life. He affirms that it has no nails on its toes, though he correctly refers to the toes, which are scarcely distinguished. The nails of the elephant are one of the “points” which the natives of India always regarded as marks of a well-bred animal, and are usually conspicuous. Let us take another point, the “gray-headed error” that the elephant has no knee joints. Aristotle says, “The elephant is not so constructed as to be unable to sit down and bend his legs, as some persons have said, but from his great weight he is unable to bend them on both sides at once, but leans either to the right side or the left, and sleeps in this position.” That is to say, the elephant, having bent one fore leg, cannot bend the other so as to kneel with both, which is contrary to fact. Although in this passage Aristotle demolishes the absurd statement that the elephant has no knee joints, yet, in his treatise on the “Progressive Motions of Animals,” he seems to leave the matter in doubt. After showing that without inflection there| can be no progression he says: “Progression, however, is possibio without inflection of the leg, in the same manner as infants creep; and there is an ancient story of this kind about elephants, which is not true, for such animals move because inflection takes place in their shoulderblades or hips.” The existence of animals with-

out knees is again supposed by this remark: “Since the members are equal, inflection must be made in the knee, or in some joint, if the animal that walss is destitute of knees.” If Aristotle bad ever seen an elephant move, is it not probable that he would have spoken more decidedly and correctly on these points? But the most astonishing assertion is that “the elephant cannot swim on account of the weight of its body.” THE LIME-KILN CLUB. Awful Fate of Conspirators Who Sought Brother Gardner’s Downfall. Detroit Free Press. The excitement which has prevailed among certain of the older members of the club came to a climax Saturday evening. What occasioned the excitement was kept a profound secret among a dozen, but it may be stated here that the rumpus was kicked tip by Prof. Sunflower Smytho, a local member with a harelip and toes turning in. For some weeks past the Profossor has hankered for an official position, and failing to •secure recognition of his merits he organized a conspiracy to dethrone Brother Gardner. By circulating many false statements, and by forging the names of several individuals to false documents, he enlisted the sympathies of Elder Antimony Swift. Deacon Cohort Davis and Judge Cut-Off Kemperberry. He approached Huckleberry Tompkins with the plan, and even went so far as to offer him anew 50-cent doormat to join the conspiracy, but Brother Tompkins was true blue, and gave the whole affair away. When the meeting was called to order the three conspirators were in their seats, entirely unsuspicious of the sand-club which was hanging over their heads, while the President, Sir Isaac Walpole, Waydown Bebee and others in the ring carried very serious countenances. The plot of the conspirators was not yet fully ripe. Prof. Smythe was just settling himself down to sound Elder Toots in the matter when Brother Gardner rose up and said: “Envy am de parent of half de wickedness in dis world. One of de fust principles of human natur’ am to begrudge some odder pusson’s good luck, but’ de minit common sense am called in fur consultation dis envy disappears, except in isolated cases. “We envy the rich, while it am p’raps ourown fault entirely dat we am not classed among ’em. “We an’ yet we am fo’ced to acknowledge to ourselves dat we frew away|our opportunities. “Find me a man who am down on his fellowman on gineral principles an’ I’ll show ye a chap who orter to be in State Prison by de same rule. “De Lawd put us heah fur each to make his own way. De field am world-wide, wid plenty of room fur all. If ohe, by his applicashun, perseverance, integrity an’ determination, towers above de one who waits fur luck an’ feeds his soul on envy, any conspiracy to pull him down should be sot down on by all good men. Brudders Smythe. Swift an’ Davis, I should like to see de three of you at do foot of de grand staircase. Dar’ am a leetle matter dat I wish to discuss in private.” The trio of conspirators were evidently greatly surprised at the request, but suspected nothing, and followed the President down stairs. As no one else was permitted to follow, it may never be known what happened on the landing. What the meeting heard may, however, throw some general light upon the subject: 1. Yells of terror. 2. Sounds of heels striking the walls. 3. Sounds of cloth being ripped aud torn, aud boot-heels striking the fence on the other side of the alley. 4. Bump—kerchunk—thud—deep silence. 5. The echoes of the toe of a No. 13 boot striking against the coat-tails. Soon after these last-mentioned sounds had died away, Brother Garduer entered the room with a sweet smile on his face, and walked straight to his seat without a word. There was blood on his left ear, and the polish was worn off his right boot, and one end of his coliar was unbuttoned; but this might have happened to any man who had fallen down stairs. “Mr. President, shall I cross de three names off do book!” asked the secretary. “De Cka’r reckons you may,” was the answer, “an’ we will now take up do reg’lar bill o’ fare.” NOVELIST CABLE’S COTTAGE. The Room Wherein the Little Writer of Creole Romances Polishes His Periods. Washington Capital. In his literary labors George W. Cable is a marvel of neatness and exactitude. His ehirogn;phy resembles a Spencerian copy-book, and every manuseripfeis carefully copied by letterpress, neatly bound and laid away upon the shelves of his library. His study *is rather a dull room and suggests a workshop. Two low book-cases, books meagre and plain, an ugly, high desk and map of Louisiana are opposite the open grate, above which hangs a strong head of Homer. On the mantle stands an artistic bust of Clytie. Some etchings and sketches suggest the taste of the master, while a well-worn Webster’s Dictionary hints that he is not beyond the needs of his fellow-man. The only attractive spot is the low window dividing the book shelves, whero the broad seat among the cushions suggest dreams of “Old Creole Days.” Directly across the street from “George’s Cottage” lives Madame La Mere, a dear little darkeyed old lady, who always carries a black silk bag in her hand and seems to have stepped out from a Vandyke picture. She is earnest in manner and exceedingly fond of “George,” although she does say that the abuse of her son in the New Orleans papers “just makes her sick.” She is an example of true Southern hospitality. During Mardi Gras season she found two strangers, ladies from Illinois, wandering about the city seeking lodgings. Mrs. Cable was horrified and immediately took them to her own house and made them welcome guests for three weeks. Cable’s cottage is a plain, brown wooden building. with high steps and veranda across the entire front. Two orange trees meet in anarch over the entrance, and throw their fragrance through the house. This winter it has been occupied bv Joaquin Miller. The poet of the Sierras has been the guest of the city of New Orleans, and the Cable cottage was assigned ■*i during his stay. He declares himself in e with the Crescent City, aud has just fin- . led what he names his “great poem”—“The Rime of the Great River,” a poem* of the war, which, will stir old recollections and latter-day critics. Getting Acclimated in Texas. William Arp, in Attanta Constitution. There is a vast amount of money in this country. Every little town has its national bank. Sberman has only 10,000 inhabitants, and has over a million of banking'capital. Dallas has five millions, and Fort Worth as mueh more. Waco has five banks. These people are rich and they have made their money here. Any prudent mast can make mony here, if he has some money to start on. Golden opportunities ara before 'him all the time, for this country is on a boom. Tho farmer is sure to get a fair crop if not an abundant one. The merenant does not have to depend on his friends and acquaintances for customers. Everybody trade* with anybody, and they take no time to run around and jew for low prices. The people de not look hacked or impoverished, but stir around lively. But a man who moves here from tho old States has to be very cautious until he has had time to look around. If he has a little money he had better keep it low down in his pocket for a few months, or he will get acclimated. By aeelimation they mean losing what you brought with you and getting so reduced that you can’t get away if you wanted to. An old acquaintance asked me yesterday if I had got acclimated, and I told him yes, and that I had written home for enough money to take me back to Georgia. “Happy man,” said he, “if you have any left at home, for but few who come here leave any behind, and by the time we acclimate them they are properly humble and go to work and in a year or so are reconciled to stay.” Anecdote of Carl Pretzel. Detroit Tiroea. C. H. Harris (Carl Pretzel), editor of Carl Pretzel’s Weekly, of Chicago, is a rotund, jolly little man, with a gray mustache and a great capacity for drinking beer. In the dim past Carl ran for coroner and was beaten. During the canvass he had his and the drinks of his adherents in the neighborhood of his office “slated up” at a saloon across the street The night after election, when Pretzel had fully concluded that ho was beaten, the saloon aeross the road caught fire. When tho fireman began throwing water into the building Carl hoisted the window, stack bis head out and bawled at the top of his voice: “Play on der slate! Play on der slatel For God’s sake, play on der slate!”

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