Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 May 1882 — A REAL SWEET STORY. [ARTICLE]

A REAL SWEET STORY.

ftrom Harper's Weekly. It was by far the worst quarrel they nad ever had, and they had had mauy, lor she had a temper, and he had a temper, and they were both of them •impulsive young people with very little self-control. “You are a false, selfish, untruthful, •. man-like man,” said she. “And you a suspicious, unreasonable unwomanly woman,’, said lie. “Take back your letters,” she cried, flinging a parcel tied with hyacinthblue ribbon on the floor at his feet. “I will,” he muttered between his clenched teeth, picking up the parcel and throwing it into the fire,where it blazed brightly for a moment or two .and then flew away in thin uncanny black fragment up the chimney. As the last fragment disappeared, Rick tamed again to Letty, with frowning brow, hna asked, as he had asked before: “Do you still persist in accusing me of deceit and falsehood?” *‘l do,” she replied, “unless you show me the charm.” “I will not show it to you, ” he declared, with violent emphasis. “If my word be not sufficient. I refuse to give you farther proof. I wonder that yoa dare insult me asking it. And I also wonder how you, believing me to be false and untruthful, can be willing to trust your future to me. And, to speak frankly, I begin to think we have made a great mistake in supposing that we could spend that future happily together, for lam fully convinced we are anything but Two soulß with but a single thought, - . Two hearts that beat as one! (These lines were quoted with most inflection.) “And furthermore, I also begin to think that perhaps it would have been better ir we had never made this mistake—if we had never met, in fact.” •‘Oh, indeed, sir!”—with great assumption of dignity. “Have you just arrived at that conclusion ? I have been sure of it. But there is nothing easier than to part. Your letters are already disposed of. To-morrow I •will send back your ring and picture, and then, when I am free once paore, I can try and please my mother, (our acquaintance, as you are well aware, ban never pleased her), and in pleasing her I may And I am doing a pleasant as well as a wise thing for myself.” •‘Are you referring to Brougham Brown?” “I am referring to Brougham Brown.” •‘By heavens!” exclaimed Rick, aabjng bis hat, “this is too much. Betty, good bye forever!” Bat Letty begau humming an air fiom Patience, drumming an accompanimenton the window-pane, and

vouchsafed no answer. Rick rushed rom the room. The humming and drumming ceased instantly, and the whilom performer listened intently. Five minutes passed, and still the street door did not slam. “He is waiting for me to come out into the hall and beg his pardon, I suppose,” she said with a defiant grimace, “but I won’t,” and she turned again to the window as the door shut with a bang. ' And then she flung herself on the lounge, kicked oft her slippers, and cried like a summer shower. Rick gone, and gone “forever I’’—Rick whom she had loved so dearly, and who had loved her so dearly, for two long years. And why? Just because that silly, giggling Lena Varian, with her pale blue eyes and straw-colored hair, had chosen to tell fibs about him. And shaking the tears from her lashes, she began scolding herself as hard an she had scolded Rick. “The, idea, Letty Lounsbery, of your believing that girl before him! What possessed you? He did flirt a little with her, that is true; but all men flirt a little witli girls who persistin admiring them and flattering them. But he never gave her the little gold pig—your Christmas gift to him—never! How she got it I can’t imagine, but he would have explained if you had given him a chance.” And then tne absent mother, gone to Aunt Emory’s for a two days’ visit, came in for a share of reproach. “If she had only let our engagement be known. instead of insisting upon our waiting until Rick was twenty-one, and I had n<t been obliged to carry my engagement ring >n my back hair, the only place where it is safe from Baby’s—Goodness gracious! Bajty!” And Letty suddenly remembered that ever since Rink came in to make a morning call, knowing Mrs. Lounsberry was absent —poor fellow he’d have staid away if he could have foreseen his reception—Baby had been sitting alone in the d»nnin£-room in the middle of the big dining-table, surrounded by all the pickle and marmalade jars ana fruit cans and catsup bottles and jam pots out of the store-room. For it was the monthly house-cleaning day, and the store-room fell to Letty’s share, the foreign help being gifted with 100 great a talent for smashing and breaking, to say nothing of an equally great talent for abstracting and devouring both sweets and sours. Letty sprang from the lounge, tnrust her feet into her slippers, and hastened where duty had been calling her for some time. Baby sat, as good as gold, nursing a bottle of tomato sauce, snugly wrapped in a dish-towel, in the very spot where she had been when Rick’s ring summoned her to the door. Only one small flask broke on the floor, filling the air with the subtle fragrance of garlic. “That won’t be missed,” said Letty. “Thank fortune/’ there is no worse mischief done. But the “thank” was scarcely uttered when her eyes fell upon the last jar of the famous peach marmalade the secret of the making of which died with grandmamma, and which was being carefully kept for Aunt Emory’s (Aunt Emery was an old maid worth $30,000) birthday. There it stood directly in front of Baby, with more than half of its thick paper torn oft, and a yawning cavity made in its precious contents by little scooping fingers. “Oh, Baby, why couldn’t you have taken any jar but that?” asked Letty, reproachfully and dramatically. But Baby evidently had no excuse to offer for not doing so, for she kept on crooning to her bottle-doll, while her sister hastily fashionedN another paper hat aud tied it securely over what remained of the original covering. Then said Baby, “Rick liss I—nice Rick!”

“Oh, that is what he was doing when she foolishly imagined he was waiting for her to come and implore her forgiveness—bidding good-by to Baby. “She might have known it, for he had always loved Baby dearly. “Yes, Baby; nice Rick, good Rick, dear Rick; but, for all that, the ring he gave me goes back to him to-mor-row unless I hear from him to-night. How dare he wish that we had never met?” But she did not hear from him that night, and the next day the little band of gold was released from its hiding place in her thick brown hair, and a too faithful messenger placed it in Rick’s hands as he left his place of business. But, ah! what a silent, sorrowful maiden wandered about the Lounsberry dwelling thereafter! what a listless, weary voice repeated the nursery rhymes that Baby demanded fifty times a day! “No nice—no more,” said Baby, missing the merry tones and the happy laugh. But Mrs. Lounsberry was not at all displeased with the turn affairs had taken. Brougham Brown suited her much better as a prospective son-in-law than Richard Creighton. One was a wealthy young brewer, the other a poor clerk in a counting-house. “Letty will soon get over it,” she said to Letty's father, whose heart ached at the sight of his daughter’s sad faoe. “A first-love disappointment is always hard to bear for awhile. I thought I should have died when Stephen Ford married my cousin; but I didn’t; I lived to marry you. and I have a seal-skin cloak, and Mrs. Ford hasn't even a jacket.” And so Brougham Brown, who was really a manly, generous, good-heart-ed fellow, in spite of his'beer and wealth, encouraged by the maternal head of the house, began devoting himself in the most ardent fashion to Letty; and she, seeing her mother’s Jileasure thereat, and hearing no word rom Riok, received his attentions in a passive, unresponsive way. Three months went by, and it was Aunt Emory’s birthday, and that eccentric old lady had decided to divide* it among the family, lunching with

one portion, dining with another, and. supping with a third. The lunch party was given at her sister Letitia’s (Mrs. Lounsberry), and some half a dozen old friends and some dozen relatives were bidden to the f?asfc. Letty, in a sea-green gown (Rick’s favorite gown), with a spray of pink hyacinths (Rick’s favorite spring flower) in her hair, went quietly about welcoming the guests, Brougham Brown following her like her shadow, until lunch w*s announced. Then taking her place at the table, the young man still near her, she raised the cover from and-dipped a spoon into the last jar of grandmamma’s famous peach marmalade (she had had it placed before her, trusting to be able to hide the mischief Baby had done), when somebody said, addressing her mother: “Have you heard that Richard Creighton is going abroad for his health ? He has given up his situation, and sails m a nay or two. They say he has failed fast lately.” And the very next moment Aunt Emory fixed her spectacled eyes upon her niece’s poor pale face, and asked sharply: “What’s the matter, child? Do you see anything dreadful in the sweets?” “No, ma’am,” answered Letty, with a pitiful attempt at a smile, when the spoon struck something harder than preserved peaches should be. “Let me help you,” said Brougham; and with one turn of his wrist Jie placed upon the dainty china shell before her—a wad of paper. “And so that is the last of the celebrated marmalade, is it?” said Aunt Emory. “I.don’t want any. I prefer my sweets u nmixed with unknown foreign substances. Take it away, Norah.” But Letty was already slowly unrolling the paper (it proved to be the missing part of the jar’s original hat) —a rather difficult thing to accomplisn, as it stuck persistently to her small fingers, but accomplished at last, when out rolled the the little gold pig. And on the inside of the paper was scrawled, in Rick’s bold hand, these words: ‘*My Darling —How foolish we are —I mean, I am! Here is the charm. Miss Varian had it about ten minutes last night—only long enough to show it to you and tell you a story about it. Baby will give it to you. Had no paper, so I tore a piece off one of your jam pots. Will see you to-merrow evening. Rix.” Never did any young lady so suddenly break through all the conventionalities of society, never did daughter so quickly forget the wishes of her mother, never did niece so unflinchingly brave the displeasure of a $30,000 aunt as did Letty Lounsberry the instant after she had this note. “Brougham,” she cried; looking at him with beautiful, beseeching eyes, “I must see Rick, I must—l must. You will go and bring him to me, dear?” (It was the first time she had ever called him “dear,” and, alas! he felt that it would be the last.) For a moment he pulled his long mustache nervously. “We are not very good friends, you know,” at last he said. “Yes, I know. But I am to blame for that too,’’said Letta, hurriedly. “Forgive me, Brougham, but I must see Rick.”

And the good fellow, hesitating no longer, turned from that imploring face, and,with a tugging at his heartstrings, went off to seek his rival. He found him, and brought him back to the girl they both loved. And what do you think Aunt Emory did?—Aunt Emory, *vho had declared over and over again that only as Mrs. Brougham Brown, Letty should inherit any of her money. “Left the hoiise in a passion ?” Not a bit of it. She laughed and laughed until she could laugh no longer. “Now I shall have somthing new to tell folks,” she said, “They must be tired and sick of my old yarns. I’m sure I am. Love, gold pigs, jealousy, and marlamade all mixed up together. It’s one of the funniest things I ever heard in all my life.” “I’m glad you think so,” said Mrs. Lounsberry. It don’t strike me that way *What are you going to live on? “Oh, I’ll look after them,” said Aunt Emory, and her remark made a very good ending to this real sweet story.