Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 August 1882 — Page 2

**He and She.” BY JEDWIV ABKOLD. ‘•She i» eeadl” they said to him; “como a ways Ki** her and leave her—thy love U elayl” They smoothed her tresses of dark brown hair; On her forehead of atone they laid it fairs Over her eyea, that gaxed too much, They drew the lids with a gentle touch; With a tender touch they closed up well The aweet thin lips that had secret* to telL About her brows and beautiful face They tied her veil and marriage lace, And drew on her whße feet her white silk shoes— Which were the whitest no eye could choose— And over her bosom they crossed her hands. ‘•Come away!” they said; “God understand*." And there was alienee, and nothing there But silence, and scents of eglantene, And Jasmine, and roses, *Qd rosemary; And they said, “As a lady should he, lies she." And they held their breath till they left the room, With a shudder to glance at its stillness and gloom. But he who loved her too well to dread The sweet, the stately, the beautiful dead, lie lit his lamp and took the key And turned it—alone again— he and the. ITo and she; but she would not speak. Though he kissed in the old place, the quiet cheek. He and she; yet she would not smile, Though he called her the name she lowed erawhile. He and she; still she did not move To any one passionate whisper of love. Then he said, “Cold lip* and breasts without breath, Is there no voice, no language of death? Dumb to the ear and still to ths sense, But to heart and to soul distinct, intense? See now; I will listen with soul, not ear; What was the secret of dying, dear? Was it the inflnite wonder of all That you ever could let life’s flower fall! Or was it a greater marvel to feel The perfect calm o’er the agony steal? Was the miracle greater to Anti how deep beyond all drcams sank downward that sleep? Did life roll back its records, dear, And show, as they say it does, past things clear? And was it the innermost heart of the bliss To flnd out so, what a wisdom love is? O perfect dead! O dead most dear, I hold the breath of my soul to hear! I listen as deep as to horrible bell, As high as to heaven, and you do not tell. There must'be pleasure in dying, sweet, To make you so placid from head to feet' I would tell you, darling, if I were dead, And ’twere your hot tears upon my brow shod— I would say, though the Angel of Death had laid Ilia sword on my lips to keep it unsaid. * Ton should not ask vainly, with streaming eyes, Which of all death’s was the chiefest surprise. The very strangest and suddenest thing Of all the surprises that dying must bring.” Ah, foolish world; O most kind dead! Though ho told me who will believe it was said? Who will believe that he heard her say, With the sweet, soft voice, in the dear old way—- “ The utmost wonder is this—l hear And see you, and love you, and kiss you dear; And am your angel, who was yonr bride, And know that, though dead, I have never died."

SAVED BY MATCHES.

A small room, poorly furnished; a pot of mignonette in the window; a girl at work at the table, sewing steadily. She would have been pretty if she had not been so poor. If she had been better fed, she would have had a rosy cheek; if she had had freedom and less labor, she would have had dimples; if she had worn a dress of violet silk, instead of the faded calico, if would have brought out the fairness of her skin and the golden hue of her hair. As it was, Alice Mome was pale, and pinched, and sad, with the sewing-girl’s stoop of shoulders, aud the sewing-girl’s heavy heart. She rose suddenly and folded up her work—a child’s garment, of fine cambric, trimmed with dainty lace. She made a package of it, donned her bonnet and shawl, and went out of her lodging-house. Slie threaded the commercial streets rapidly, and soon emerged on the avenues of wealthy private residences. Here it was quieter. The dusk was gathering. Nowand then a carriage rolled by. Ono or two stately houses were lighted for receptions. Many more were somberly closed. Alice went on, with her quiet, rapid step. She stopped at last before a house all in a blaze of light. Costly lace curtains concealed the luxurious rooms within ; tho soft notes of a piano came softly upon the girl’s car. “The Tracys give another party tonight,” said Alice. She went into the area and rang the boll. A servant admitted her. She went in with her bundle. She came out with a light step. The work had been approved, and she had been paid. A little dazzled with the scene she had just emerged from, she Eauscd upon tho pavement to count er money. i “Give me a cent,” said a little beg-gnr-boy starting somewhere out of the silent shadows. “What do you want it for?” asked Alice. “I’m hungry,” answered the child. He was pale and pinched. “Mere’s a dime; I would give you more if I could,” she said. The child took it eagerly. She passed on, with less than $2 to buy supper and pay for a week’s rent. She had more work. When it was Hulfthedjho came the same way in the

dusk. As slid passed over the side, walkafaiirt line of white attracted her attention. There was a knob of glass, generally called a “bull’s-eye,” in the pavement. It is usually inserted over a coal vault, aud is removed to admit the coals. This one had not been adjusted with exactitude, and at the crevice appeared a line of white. Alice stooped down and examined it. It was the edge of a folded paper. bhe drew it out with a wild thought that it might be some valuable cheek or draft. But it contained only a few words, written in pencil. “I have watched for you constantly for a week. If you would save my life come back here, and all night idhg place uiatcne* where you found this paper. You shall be rewarded with all you can ask. A I’kibun kb." Alice closed the paper in her hand and looked around bewildered. No one was to be seen. She looked down at the lump of dull glass, but it was entirely opaque. The bull’s eye was not set quite evenly in its place. She touched it with her foot, but could not move it. After waiting a moment, confused and in doubt, she passed on, recollecting her errand. The area door admitted her. The servant had a child on her arm, the dainty little thing for whom Alice made garments. “Mrs. Tracy said you was to come up to her chamber,” said she. “You know the way.” The lady whom she met was not lovely; ehc was sallow and dark; very disagreeable-looking clutching her caslunere gown at the breast, and turning impatiently toward her little sew-ing-girl. "Why did you not come before?” she asked in a hoarse voice, with a slight French accent. “The child should have had that dress to drive in to-day.” • “1 was sick yesterday; I could not finish it,” answered Alice, tremulously* \ Madame snatched the package, tearing it open,* and letting the little embroidered robe fall upon the bed. “Well, hero is your money,”g said she, opening a velvet purse. “Next time 1 will employ some one who will do as they promise.” Alice turned away with a bursting heart —for the woman’s words meant starvation for her. She dared not raise her voice in reply; she divined truly that the heart under that rich robe was one of tone. As she passed down stairs, sire heard a low voice. It proceeded from one of the rooms about her. “And he is 21 to-day?” it Baid. “Yes; it is three years since his mysterious disappearance,” with a sneering laugh. The voices were stealthy. A door closed and shut them in.

Alice passed down into the street. She walked fast, treading, unthinkingly, upon the bull’s-eye, and went home. When she flung herself down to weep, she suddenly felt the crumpled paper in her hand. What should she do? She lay thinking a long time. She considered the strangeness of the request, the possibility that it was not meant for her, the idea that it was a hoax, or written by some madman—for it was a man’s hand writing. But the girl’s heart was warm and true. The possibility that some one was in trouble, and she might help them, was the thought that had the most weight. With no one to counsel or object, she obeyed it. She went to a store and spent $1 of her precious money for matches. She received a-large package, containing thousands of the little lucifers. The city clocks were striking 9 as she reached the bull’s-eye. The street was silent, the pavement deserted. As she bent down, some •one tapped upon the bull’s-eye. She slipped a sheet of matches into the crevice. It disappeared. She waired a few moments; the hand tapped for more; she supplied them. As she waited again a pedestrian approached. She rose, and stepped back into the shadows until he had passed; otherwise, she did not fear. Tho street was quiet, and she could' see the stars twinkling in the clear sky. Hour after hour she supplied matches, at intervals of quarter hours. Occasionally the rap came for an earlier demand. But she could not see the hand. She only imagined it to be a man’s. It was long past midnight. The city clocks were near striking 2 when her matches became exhausted. She had not beeu sufficiently supplied, she thought; Quite at a loss what she ought to do she rose from lier cramped position, standing in doubt, when a voice said : “Como with me!” She started in terror, for a man stood beside her; but the next words reassured her; “It is 1 whom you gave tho matches to; do not be afraid, but take my arm, and walk fast, I am not safe here.” Alice could see only a tall form, and a pale face, the features of which she could not distinguish ; but the voice, though hurried, was gently modulated, aud the stranger took her hand with a grasp that was not unpleasant. “You must be tired; but this has been a good night’s work for you, little girl,” he said. “ vVhat did you want the matches for?” asked Alice, trembling. Ho bad drawn her hand within his own, and she walking rapidly beside him. r “It was the only way in which I could got fire,” ho answered. “Tho heat melted the cement which inclosed a bull’s-eye in the wall of my prisqd. and I escaped through the cavity.

It was larger Than the one in the pavement- I have been a prisoner in my own house for three years.” As they left the vicinity of the Tracy dwelling, he walked slower. “I was quite helpless,” he added. “I knew of no one to appeal to whom I could trust But listening and waiting, as a man only listens and waits for freedom, I grew familiar with your step as it passed so often over the bull’s-eye and up the steps, and a week ago, when 1 heard your voice to beggar-boy, I resolved to trust you. I knew your tread the instant that it touched the curbstone, and 1 slipped the paper up the crevice. i You saw it immediately. The hours till you came passed heavily; you were my only hope. You are a brave, good child. Now, w'.rerc is your home? Can I go there for a little rest before daylight?” “It is a poor place,” said Alice, “but you are welcome.” Daylight was dawning when she revealed her poverty-stricken little room to him. lie flung himself into a chairand dropped his face on his folded arms upon the table. Alice fancied that he was praying, and moved about noiselessly, preparing a little breakfast. She did not realize that this man was yon ng and handsome, and it was not, perhaps, propriety to have him there. She was only zealous, in her pity, to serve him, seeing, by daylight, how ill he looked. But by noon there were strange doings in the little sewing-girl’s room. She had been sent for a lawyer, the most renowned and popular one in the city, and he came with two other gentlemen, so grand that little Alice was quite awe-stricken. Finally, Mr. Lionel Tracy—that was the namcaof her hero—went away with them, and she was left alone with her poverty and her wonder. Only she was not quite so helpless and distressed as she had been, for one of the strange gentlemen had smiled upon her, and left a few pieces of gold on her table. But the marvel was all over with her, and the gold was spent, and poverty and labor and care had come back, when, one day, there was a knock at the door, and the landlady’s little girl said thalt a carriage was standing for her, and a man in waiting said that she had been sent for. What could she do but obey the summons? wondering what fairy work it was—that luxurious ride—until she began to see through it, for the carriage stopped at the Tracy mansion. * 1 There had been great public excitement —the papers had been charged with the development of the infamous plot in high life, whereby the true heir of a great fortune had been drugged, while ill, and concealed, and a story trumped up about his mysteri--ous disappearance; but Alice, in her solitude, had known nothing about it. Iler pennies went for bread instead of news. But wjien she stepped upon ♦he threshold, Lionel Tracy, the restored master, met her with a tender courtesy that took away all her fear, and made her feel like a little queen ,in the midst of the splendor. “Haye the rest all gone away?” she asked, seeing no one but new servants, and a pleasant woman, who was the housekeeper. “Yes; lam quite alone, and shall be, unless you will come and live with me,” said Mr. Lionel Tracy. “Do you want a sewing-girl?” asked Alice, innocently. “No; I want a wife,” he answered; “one whom lean love with all my heart, as Ido you, Alice. Will you come?” Did she? Well, yes. And the public had another episode to excite them —the famous Lionel Tracy’s marriage. Alice grew charming with happiness, and she was chronicled as a beauty when she became his bride.

A Heroic Boy.

Every year on the occasion of the national fetes tho Belgian Government makes a public distribution of rewards to persons who have performed remarkable acts of courage in good causes. Among those who were rewarded the other day was a little boy of 9, named G juin, whose exploit may be contrasted with the behavior of the people who recently allowed a littjp girl to be drowned at Kensington Gardens. Genin, playing in a field a few months ago, saw a little girl fall into the Sambre. Without knowing who the child was, he plunged into the river, and after some trouble saved her. The child turned out to be his own sister. .Not content with having rescued her from death, Genin, like a good hearted little boy, wanted to shield her from the punishment she had deserved by playing too near the river, contrary to her parrents’ orders. So he took the blame of her disobedience on himself and received a beating from his father. The Jittle girl, however, could not bear to see him suffer in this way, apd afterward told the whole truth, which was corroborated by the evidence of an eyewitness. The facts then became public, and young Genin was summoned to Brussels ft the fetes to receive a national recompense. He was, of course, loudly cheered as he stepped up to the platform, and M. Rolljn-Jacquemyns, the Home Minister, in pinhing a medal to his breast, called him a little hero.St. James' Gazette.

Bret Harte is dilatory to the last deSree. A Paris paper offered him sl,00 for a story, out he took life easy, failed to have his copy on time, au i was curtly told to keep it for gunwadding. Lord Lyons, British Ambassador in Paris, when recently solicited for his autograph, declined on the ground that he was not a “public character.”

HUMOR.

Thirty days after a Michigan man got a divorce from his wife to marry ”bne with a handsomer face the woman fell heir to $287,000. You bet that exhusband feels like a man with the jumping toothache. Culture and slang: “Acquires the confection” is the Boston girl’s translation of “Takes the cake.” Similarly. “The proper caper” becomes “The correct contortion.” Consolation misapplied: “Yon must fee) lonely, since your husband went away,” consolingly observed a neighbor to her lady friend. “Not at all, she replied: it is the first holiday I have had since I was school-girl.” “I declare, John, I never saw such a man! You are always getting some new wrinkle.” And the brute calmly replied: “Matilda, you are not, thank fortune. If you had a new wrinkle, you would have no place to put it, dear.” The decorative art mania. Miss Nonaufait: “What a charming love of a cup marked ‘Tom and Jerry!’” Gentlemanly vendor of majolica: “Yes, we sell a large number of them.” MissN.: “But haven’t you some marked Clifford and Alvoid, or Bertie and Georgie?” A Chicago young man broke into the room of the girl he loved, to carry her away, as she refused to marry him. She was absent, but left the bull dog asleep on the bed. The room was dark. The dog didn’t bark but workeu. In about seven minutes the remains of the young man came out and said he wouldn’t marry that girl for $70,000. “0, smile as thou wert wont to smile,” sang the idol of little Toddlekin’s soul one evening as he sat on the lounge in the parlor. He had recently at her earnest request sworn off the use of intoxicating fluids. As she repeated the refrain he looked up calmly with a strange, far-off look in his thirsty eye and reached for his hat “You don’t know, Maria; you don’t know,” said little Toddlekin, “what a weight that song has lifted from my heart.” He smiled again that evening as he was wont, but she never again sang so touching a ballad. At a royal wedding in Germany it is customary for the mistress’of ceremonies to cut up one of the bride s garters into small pieces, which are distributed to those who have taken part in the festivities of the day. As a large number* are entitled to these fragments of the Order of the Garter, it is not quite clear how one garter, or even a pair of garters, could supply the demand. At Prince William’s recent marriage the difficulty was met by using many yards of ribbon instead of the bride’s garter. “Ma,” said an urchin with dirt-cov-ered knuckles and a pocket full of marbles, “is it wicked to play marbles for keeps?” “Yes, my son, and you must never do it” “Is it wicked when you lose all the time?” “Yes, just the Same.” “Is it wicked if you win all the time and play with a boy who says his mother says if she had your feet she’d never go out except after dark?” “I—l—go and wash your hands and get ready for supper!” was the sharp reply, and the lad continued to play for keeps. A would-be mother-in-law meets a friend, lately in the same predicament, who cries out: “Oh, my dear, I have such a piece of news for you. My daughter was married yesterday!” “How nice! But how did you manage it? Was your son-in-law indifferent to your lack of money, or did you make him believe you were rich?” “Oh, no (with a gleeful chuckle): I got our family doctor to tell him I couldn’t live six months.” “Dearest Harold, I love you with all the deep devotion of my sex. <sTour image is ineffaceably engraved on the tablets of my memory, and in my heart the love I bear for you can never, never die. But lam extravagant, wildly ambitious to shine in society, to sit beside the jeweled queens of fashion, to dazzle all eyes with priceless gems, and so, dear, dear Harold, I must marry the plumber.”

Concerning Parlors.

London Society. The word “parlbr” is the remnant of a bygone state of things. The days are gone past when Sir Charles Grandison made his stately bow in the cedar parlor. “There are no parlors nowadays, my dear,” said an old lady, whom we may call Mrs. Partington, “except, I believe, in the public houses.” We have dining-room, drawing-room, studios, libraries, smoking-rooms,but the parlor in the ordinary British mansion has almost become a thing of the past. It remains, in a highly fossilized condition, as a venerable institution prized by the lower middle class. “Will you walk into my parlor? said the spider to the fly,” anil I always recognize the wretched feelings of that suicidal fly when I am invited into what people call a parlor. Very probably it is only used on state occasions. The family may burrow in some subterranean apartment in the basement. We perceive by a hundred signs that such a parlor is not a living room, but a dead room. It is full of stiffness and angularities, hard chairs and still harder sofas. The region in .which the parlor retains any vitality is the agricultural region. In multitudes of farm-houses, and in some vicarages, this kind of apartment is still found. But the British farmer follows hard on the tracks of the ’Squire, and gives up the humbler for the more ambitious nomenclature. It is the better class of laborer and the thriving artisan who are now aiming at the possession of parlors. Among them the parlor is really a happy and an educating influence. So prevalent have been peace and plenty of recent years, that in the suburbs of great towns you may pass whole rows of tenements in which you

may distinguish pleasant parlors, with flowering plants filling the windows and the sound of pianos clashing all down the row. Still, in special eases, the name of parlor yet survives, and of these I would say a few words. Tne parlor or parloir (La. pardbolare; Fr. paroler,parlor), as the name indicates, is a place wherein to converse. The waiting-room of a club is essentially a parlor; in a less formal, but more real, sense so is the smoking-room. The old lady was perfectly correct in her allusion—which, however, was hardly to be expected of her—to public houses. It would have been more decent if she had talked about taverns. And what glorious talk there has been in tavern Sartors before now! We think of Ben onson at the Mermaid and Sam Johnson at the Turk’s Head. There are still a few wits and scholars who haunt the sanded parlors of hostels about Fleet street: i “When all bls warm heart, sherrls-warmed. Flashed forth in random speeches.” Such men have felt and said that there is no throne like the easy chair of a tavern parlor. Perhaps there are other attractions besides wit and liquor for a tavern parlor. I know a great firm that advertises for pretty bar maids, and always sends them home at nights ip a special conveyance, to be intrusted to the charge of a most respectable matron.

Improving on Nature.

A handsome woman, elegantly dressed, entered a Broadway car in which a reporter was riding recently, and immediately, but unconsciously, diverted the attention of a dapper little man who sat staring out of countenance all the other ladies in the car. The little man, who looked like something between a hairdresser and a mid-dle-aged beau, drew a note-book from his pocket, and, after making a slight sketch of the face of the lady who had just entered the car, said to the reporter : “Fine woman, that.” The reporter could not but agree with him. “What do you think is her special charm?” asked the little man. The reporter thought it might be a sort of “I don’t know whatness,” a combination of chic and dignity, her graceful bearing, her good clothes. “I was speaking of her face purely and simply,” interrupted the little man. “Do you notice how completely her face is in respose?”' The reporter thought the lady was very pretty when she smiled, and that her face was as dimpled as that of a baby or a Watteau shepherdess. “Those dimples are her particular charm,” said the little man. “She is handsome without them, beautiful with them. In five years from to-day —perhaps before that—when my method becomes known, New York city will be filled with women who, having been plain, become pretty, having been pretty become handsome, having been handsome become beautiful.” “Oh, then, you are a sort of a * began the reporter. The little man handed him a card. It bore simply the words: “Piof. A. Verroni, No. 12 Daffodil place.” “That is my name and address,” said he. “By profession I am a surgeon, graduate of the school of Medicine, Paris. lam a specialist however, like many of the eminent—l would say like many physicians and surgeons of the present time, and my specialty is to place dimples in the faces of those to whom nature has denied this charm. Now some women can get up a six-inch smile without doing anything further than put their mouths in parenthesis, and others laugh as if they had dimples in their upper gums, but those, delicate expressive little hollows that you see in the checks are called up by the slightest movement of the lips of those who possess them and speak volumes—whole libraries.” The reporter suggested that he would be obliged to the professor if he would tell him what a dimple was. “Well, sir,” said Professor Verroni, “a dimple—a natural dimple, that is —is simply a slight hollow between tw’o muscles or over a muscle, and the skin is more firmly attached to the subjacent tissues at this point than at other points. Hence, when the muscles contract as in the act of smiling, the skin is drawn down into the hollow, forming a dimple, that beautiful—” “Yes,” said the reporter, “but how do you make them?” “1 make a puncture in the skin at the point where the dimple is required,” answered the professor, “a puncture that cannot be noticed when it has healed, and with a very delicate instrument I remove a small portion of the muscle. Then I excite a slight inflammation which attaches the skin to the subcutaneous hollow I have formed. In a few days the wound—if wound it may be called—has healed and a charming dimple is the result.” “How many times "have you performed this operation?” asked the reporter. “Many times in France,” answered the professor, “never yet in America. To-morrow 1 begin operating od several actresses who wish dimples on their faces, shoulders, arms, shoulders and arms.” “Here’s my street, Professor. Good morning.” Texas has 2,157 penitentiary convicts, for whose use the lessees pay $3 per man. It is said the postal card decreas 1 the sale of writing paper $12,000,000 annually in the Unitea States, i