Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 June 1875 — ANNE’S SCARE. [ARTICLE]

ANNE’S SCARE.

“ Will you kindly tell me, sir, if I am near Eustace street?" It was a pale, little face that looked up at Sidney Rogers. Sidney was neither young nor handsome. He had heavy, bushy whiskers, small, coal-black eyes, and an ugly scar across his left cheek. Besides that he was very full of busi ness, a!nd wore a preoccupied and anxious expression. "Eustace street!” he6aid, inhisquick, nervous way; “why, child, it’s more than two miles from here!” “ Oh, dear!” and the cheeks grew yet paler, “so far, and I’m almost tired'to death!!--“Poor child!” said the man to himself, r “you do look tired. I ought to be willing to do you a good turn.” Then he added aloud a moment after; “I am going to Eustace street myself, and I have a carriage out here. Suppose I take you there?.... l ean do it just as well as not.” A grateful glance answered him. “Thank you, sir. I’ve been walking for an hour, and I thought I w r as almost there. If you will take me I shall be w-illing to pay you something for your trouble.” “ We’ll talk about pay by and by,” he said, with a smile, for it seemed to him this child, as he thought her, was very old in her ways. She did not look muen over fourteen, but she was almosfseventeen. Leading the way, the girl following, she found herself comfortably seated in a small, open carriage, and in a moment or two they had started. “ I’ve an errand or two to do on my way," he said vyhen some time had passed in silence; and he stopped at several places, letting his companion hold the reins. The last place was an ordinary shop. Anne Wilton —that was the girl’s name=— thought it looked very much like the junk-shops she had seen in her own home. All the surroundings were com-mon-place, and the man who came out with Mr. Rogers eyed her unpleasantly, and she thought the two were talking about her. It was just then that a misgiving seized her. flow did she know who this man was w-ho had ottered to carry her to Eustace street? Why did lie take a route so roundabout, and hold conferences with such common-looking people? Was there not, after all, something sinister in his countenance? By the time he re-entered the carriage Anne had worKed herself into a state of intense alarm. What to do or say she did not know, for the man appeared to have fallen into a reverie. ‘ “Is it very far, now?” she ventured, at last, timidly. “Itindlshall have to go a little out of my way,’’was the answer, “but it will only take ten or twenty minutes at the most; then 1 will drive directly to Eustace street.” Anne pulled her veil down. It would never do to let him see how miserably scared she w T as. A little out of his way”? and here the city seemed already to have ended —the paved streets gave place to roads, and the horse was ascending a long, hilly elevation. What would come next? Some fearfully out-of-the-way place, and she a total stranger, whom nobody knew, writh twenty dollars in her pocket. Trembling from head to foot, she stole a side glance at the man by her side. He looked more sinister, more preoccupied than ever. She thought over all the feartul stories she had ever read, and they were not a few-. She calculated how she might spring from the carriage; but there was not a soul in sight, and she might easily be overtaken; besides, there was the risk of injury. Folding her hands one within another, and pressing her lips hard together, she revolved plan after plan in her mind. Presently she gave a quick, sharp cry, and leaned out. “ What’s the matter?” asked her companion. - 4 “ My bag—it fell out just now; it is full of things I need.” She had managed to let the bag fall. “ Oh, w T e can soon recover that,” said Mr. Rogers, in a tone that should Jiave reassured her; but she had worked Herself into a state of fright that w-as just short of insanity. All she wanted was the opportunity for which she had been some time planning. Tine top of the hilly road was gained; there was an incline on the other side.

“ Hold the reins,” said Mr. Rogers; “ it won’t take me a moment to get the bag.” She diet hold the reins; she was used to it Moreover, the man had scarcely set foot on the ground before she snatched the whip from its socket, struck the horse, and pell-mell went the carriage at a fearful rate,.minus poor Mr. Rogers. On and on, up one street and down another, rode the excited girl, scarcely guiding the horse, until he stopped of his own accord before a handsome house. Another moment, and, half fainting though she was, she saw a familiar, matronly face, surrounded by two or three more youthful women. “ Why, Anne Wilton! you here? How came you alone in Sidney’s carriage. I never dreamed you knew anything about the city. Where’s your uncle?" “My uncle!” Anne sat upright as a post; then she laughed, then she cried. “ That wasn’t my Uncle Sidney! What will he think? What will he say? The fact is—l—oh, dear!” and down she Tell in a dead faint. It was awkward, but they got her in the house —a little frightened and a gopd deal curious. Not an hour afterward Sidney came home, excited and angry; but he soon recovered his composure, and laughed heartily when he heard the story. ~ f. . -v;" “When I saw the carnage gone,” he said, “ I thought Dick had suddenly taken it into his head to run. I did not think for a minute that she drove him.

Well, well, never mind! no bones are broken, and the girl proved herself plucky, anyhow! The next time I oo a good-natured action for a young lady I hope I shall have common sense enough to ask her her name." As for Anne, she laughs to this day at the recollection, but excuses herself by saying that she.had not seen her uncle for ten years, and the scar got in the war, and the whiskers, completely altered him.— Youth's Companion.