Jasper Republican, Volume 1, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 April 1875 — A GIRL’S GOOD SENSE. [ARTICLE]

A GIRL’S GOOD SENSE.

“Minnie! Minnie! is my chocolate near ready?” It was scrupulously neat and dainty in all its appointments, the little parlor where Mrs. Breighton sat, although the carpet w A a tissue of darns, the furniture faded, and the hearth-rug skillfully eked out by a piece of quite another fabric inserted in the spot most worn. A few flowers, in a slender-throated vase, stood cm the antique, claw-legged table, the fender-irons glittered like gold, and the thin muslin curtains, artistically mended here and there, were whitens snow; and Mrs. Breighton herself looked like Cinderella’s godmother, in her dress of ancient brocade, best yellow lace, and the rings glittering on her small, shriveled hands. Eighty years old, and a lady at the last! That was something to be proud of. What though paralysis had robbed her of all use of those daintily-slippered feet—what though the grand house she had entered as a bride was now narrowed down to this one room in a second-rate building, where two other families also set up their household' altars—she was a lady still, and she could boast that she never had degraded henelf to commonplace toil. «* Our means are limited,” said old Mrs. Breighton, with the lofty air of a duchess; “ but the pension of my son, the Colonel —who, as you probably may remember, was killed on the Florida frontier—is sufficient to maintain myself and my two grand-daughters—and wb are ladies.” Minnie Breighton presently came in with her little chocolataire on a napkincovered tray, and slices of toast, exquisitely browned and cut as thin as a wafer. “I hope you haven’t been kept waiting, grandma?” she said. “ My dear’?—With an air of mild resignation— *• lam accustomed to wait.” “ Oh, Pm so sorry! But our fire is out, Mid I had to run in and borrow the use of Mrs. Tucker’s stove to boil the chocolate, and ” Mrs. Breighton contracted her silvery brow. “The Breightons are not a borrowing race,Minnie.” . “ Rhaß I get you an egg, grandmamma !** “ Not if the Are is out, my dear.” And Grandmamma Breighton went on with her breakfast, wearing an iniured air, while Minnie went back to the other - * -a- ~ -.a~ , and fair as a daisy.

Aima laiddOTniE riipof griM«yp*p«» -Iffl the grocer’s bill again, stater. What shall we do? ” Minnie sank into a chair. “And the gas yesterday, and the landlord net paid, and the purse is empty as —Mother Hubbard’s cupboard. Wha» shall we do?” “That’s the question,” said Anna, reflectively, arching her jetty brows. “It we can only keep it from grandmamma.” “We must,” retorted Minnie, with a decisive nod. “It would kill her. If we were men, now, Nanny, we could go out and get a job of wood-sawing, or house-painting, or ” “ And why can’t we now ?* “Why? Because Pat O’Neil has got all Mrs. Barker’s wood to saw, and because we can’t climb ladders with paintpots over our shoulders.” “ But we can do something else, t suppose. Listen, Minnie—money we must have.” .. “If we go out on the highways and ask it at the point of the bayonet,” interjected Minnie, gravely. “There’s no poverty like genteel poverty,” her sister sighed. “But you haven’t heard my plan. Mrs. Barker, the laundress in our top story, is sick.” “What then? We have neither wine nor jelly, nor yet crisp bank notes, to bestow upon her.” “And she can’t keep up to her engagements. There are two Swiss muslin ball dresses, fluted and puffed beautifully, lying in her basket waiting to be done up, at this present moment. Five dollars apiece she has for them.” “Weni” “ I shall do them up.” “Nanny! You?” “ Well, why not? Think what a golden stream of pactelous ten dollars would be in our empty coffers! Ask yourself how on earth you or I could earn ten dollars any other way. And, after all, a Swiss muslin dress to a pretty poetteal sort of fabric to wash and iron; and into the bargain, poor Mrs. Barker keeps her customers." “ Oh, Nanny! have you come to that? 0 “Now you look and talk exactly like dear oid grandmammal Don’t be a goose, Minnie! Just you invent some story about my promenading in the park or taking lessons in wax-flowers making to delude her credulous soul, while I go up-stairs and coin money.” “ But I may help you?” “ By and by, perhaps, if my wrists get tired. But now, someone must stay whhgr.ndm.mn>.’; # # “ It is very strange,” said Miss Georgiette Appleton, “ that my dresses haven’t come home! Positively, I shall have nothing to wear to-night.” She was lounging before the sea-coal fire, in a blue silk neglige trimmed with swan down, and a little French tangle of blue ribbons and lace pinned among her yellow tresses with a pearl-headed javelin, while a novel lay in her lap. “What an awful case!” observed the brother, carelessly. “Where’s tbe amethyst silk?" “ Oh, I wore that to -their last reception." “ And the pink crape?” “ I look like an owl in pink. I was a goose ever to buy that silk.” “The Nile green silk with white flounces?” * “ Sarah Howard has one just a shade lighter that she’ll be sure to wear, and I believe the spiteful thing got it on purpose to kill mine. No, I must have the Swiss muslin, with knots of blue corn flowers, and a Roman sash figured with gold. And you’ll go around to the laundress and hurry her up a little, won’t jrou, George? that’s a duck of a brother —and you know perfectly well you’ve been yawning your jaws off the last three-quarters of an hour." “Where is it?” “Only in Mendenhall street—just a pleasant walk. And give Mrs. Barker a scolding, and ask her if she don’t know better than to keep her customers waiting—although, of course, I know you’ll do nothing of the sort. Men have no moral courage. There’s the address on a card. It’ll be such * relief to my mind!” George Appleton was an army officer, home on a furlough, and rather at a loss to know what to do with so much extra time. Rich, which was another source of perplexity—handsome, which wasn’t so puzzling! And Io he sauntered along, his hands in his pockets and a cigar balanced between his Ups, unconsciously advancing to meet his fate. Rap! rap! rapt The played a tattoo with his knuckles on the door. “ Dear me, what a noise!” said a voice inside. “ Come in!"—a little founder. Th* Major walked in to confront, not a wrinkled old hag of a washerwoman in a halo of soap and steam, but a beautiful young lady, dark and brilliant as an Arabian dream, with jetty curls pinned back in a silken cascade at the back of her head, and a pair ot fluting scissors in her hand. Maj. Appleton started back, all his wits momentarily deserting Mm. It Is a curious fact that the more embarrassed one party in a tateo-tete becomes, the greater is the composure of the other. Awn* Breighton should have colored and stuttered at being caught thus, but she didn’t. “ What’s your business, sir?” she asked with greatest calmness. „ * . “It’s—it’s about my sister’s gown— Miss Appleton’s, you know?” “ Ah!” said Anna. “I hope to have it ready very soon. H you’ll wait, ten And the took a second pair of fluting scissors from the stove, testing it* heat by holding it dangerously near her velvet cheek. '

M*j. Appleton, not being pasted in etiquette and general decorum, saw no harm in oarrying home a basket of new-ly-laundried clothes. So he sat down and waited, while honest Mrs. Burker started from the other room, where she lay upon her bed—a captive to rheumatic pains. “ She’s in a hurry, you know," said the Major, twirling hta thumbs, and thinking how very pretty the girt was.. “ So am I," said Anna, making the flutting scissors glide in and out ina most marvelous manner among the clouds of sunny muslin. ? “She want* to wear ft," added the Mfijor. “ But I say you—know—you’re not a regular washerwoman?” . Anna slightly straightened herself up. “My father was a Colonel in the regular army. My grandfather was Hyde Breighton, of Breighton Manor, on the Hudson. But we are reduced now, and we need money; and I am not ashamed to work." “By Jove, you’re a trump t” said M*j. Appleton, starting up. “Much obliged to you," retorted Anna, with sparkling eyes. “ Would you mind holding the sash for me—just a second, while I finish this loop?” And when Minnie came up to see how her sister was getting on, she found her aided and abetted by the Major of cavalry, who wfis heating the alternate pairs of fluting scissors after a most scientific fashion. -V 68 - ■ “Dear me," said Miss Appleton, wheS at last her brother made his appearance, ° how long you have been." “Yes," said the Major, rubbing Ms hands with an appearance of great satisfaction, “ft took us quite a while to finish those last thirteen flounces.” “Us! You don’t mean to say that you helped the washerwoman?” “ Yes, I did," said the Major; “ and th* frocks are down-stairs, and I’m going up for a game of billiards.” And as he went he murmured to himself, “ I thought aU girls were alike, but I believe I’ve discovered on* independent—on* at last!" *»»• • * . » “Grandmamma, l*m going to be married.” “You, Nanny? Why, you are but* chfld." Anna Breighton was kneeling beside her grandmother’s chair, and the fairy godmother was stroking her curls with one tremulous whit* hand, where the antique jewels shone like drops of blood and scintillating sparkles of green fire. “ I’m eighteen, grandmamma.” “So you are! How time flies! Eighteen years old! But who’s the happy man? W* see no society worthy of ourselves, Nanny , and—" “Tm sure you will Mk* him, grandmamma. He is coming to pay hta respects to you to-night. His name ta Major George Appleton. He is m the —the cavalry, and he owns * house on Madison avenue, and—and he loves me, grandNanny held her black-tressed head on the old lady’s shoulder as she spoke the last words. “ All natural enough, my dear; but do you lov* Mm? " “ Yes, grandmamma.” “ And where did you meet him? When were you introduced? ” “ I wasn’t introduced at all,” returned Nanny, with mischievous elves of flame coming and going in her eyes. “I was fluting muslin up in Mrs. Barker’s room, when he came in on an errand; and—oh! grandmamma, you have always thought it so dreadful to work. But if I hadn’t been working I never should have met him. And I love him so much, grandmamma! ” “ Well, well,” said the old lady, rather reluctantly, “ things seem to be altered from what they were when I was a girl.” “But you shall live with us always, granny dear, and Minnie, too, and we shall be so happy." And Anna Brighton's tears were tear* of perfect joy. .