Kenosha tribune & telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1856-1859, 1856-11-06

den would pass through after nightfall,
and which the gentry never venture
down at any time"
Those bright young heads turned as
they passed the thick privet hedge of
Maud's garden; and Eva laughing like
a merry bird trilling in the sky, when
she saw the dusky face peerine out
among the shining leaves, checked her
bay mare, and asked how authorizations
had been behaving lately. For you
are something more or loss than human
and that all the COLLINS and imps, and
and bad spirits, which are so
plentiful i'll the Hollow, there at your
bidding"
Then how dare you, Miss Eva, come
here" asked Maud; ''you are not very
famous for courage, nor Your brother,
there, great and strong as you both are"
"We are protected, Maud, by our
own innocence" said Horace roughly.
witches have nopowerover Christians,
so that is why we defy you, Maud, and
laugh you to scorn; and he shook his
whip at the elfin face among the leaves,
more boyishly than brutally, though
brutality was not wanting, either, at no
time wanting, for it made up the very
element of Horace Gray's
character.
well done, Master Horace" retort-
ed Maud contemptuously; sit is fine
for you to insult Maud of
the Hollow; a manly pastime for great
boy of nineteen to annoy weak girl. If
/ had brother as big as you, Master
Horace, | wonder if you would call me
bad names then" And Maud's large
black eyes rained out contempt and an
ger like fire from beneath their lids; for
though she tried hard to subdue her
natural impotuosity, and her kneenness
to take offence, it was not always pos
sible to hold such check and string over
herself rs to make her patient and for
giving all at once; and there was some
thing III the tone of Horace's insults
which reused her blood more than any
thing else.
''Come away, Horace" whispered
Eva; Maud is angry, and am afraid
OF her when she is angry. She looks so
dreadful, | am sure she will DO MS some
harm if we tease her any longer" And
the two young creatures started off with
out another word-liorace vainly en-
deavoring to look heoric and indifferent,
and Eva showingmore terror than might
have been expected from anything so
grand and queenly.
Maud stood by the hedge, listening to
their voices for a long time; and when
they had died away she crept back to
her lair among the laurels, feeling very
sad and lonely.
They call me dwarf, witch, elf, imp"
said Maud; ''they laugh at me for my
swarthy skin-and it is swarthy by the
side of theirs, fair as flowers, and bright
as morning clouds; they ridicule me for
being small and deformed, and Horace
threatens to crush me with one blow OF
his great hand; and Eva pretends not to
see me when she passes me like a queen
and looks down on the ground as if
looking for a grasshOpper, when she
hears my voice; and other impertinenccs
they are always offering me, with more
malice and cruelty in them. And | some
times get angry, though often it is only
Il pretence. But should not be angry
with those two foolish prattling children;
they have been warped by the fatal
education of prejudice--so far warped,
as to forget the claims of a common
because of a shade more or
less Of brown on the cheek, or IN inch
more or less of height to the figure. No,
| do not blame themi A curse is laid
upon me with which | must bear, and
of which they work out small portion;
the form and features of gnome with
the feelings of passionate humanity;
the binding strength Of love, the warm
idolatry OF beauty, with the impossibilty
to be loved, and the consciousness of
deformity. l, who could love these two
young things in all their glorious youth
and beauty, must feel myself shut out
from them, as from all others, because
Of this fearful curse of outward unloveli-
ness" And then she turned her face
to the ground, and her tears fell like
heavy rain among the dry leaves of the
fallen evergreens. ''And yet it is not
4 fault that | am dark and small" she
said, drying her tears; 'born, no one
knows where, of an outcast mother,
whose gipsy home was of all countries,
whom no nation claimed, and no kins-
man owned. 1t is not sin that | am
not fair and queenly, like Eva, nor like
Horace, strong and beautiful. But it is
made fault, and | suffer the penalties
of sin all the same, She is like prin-
cess-she is 50 grand and noble in her
beauty: while | creep along the earth,
ike forgotten reptile at the foot of the
golden throne whereon she sits like a
queen. But vet, | would not change
my stunted form and swarthy skin for
Eya's glorious beauty, if | must take
Eva's mindless brain as well. | can
feel: | can love; while Eva-the bright
morning star i'll the sky, knows as little
of human sympathies as she. Yet, oh,
she is so beautiful that one forgives all
her sins and shortcomings, and almost
could love her solely for the sake ofthat
beauty. And Horace, too, rough, rude
and uncultivated as he is; for beauty is
50 divine a gift from God, that we
must needs worship it; and ah.' added
Maud with a sigh, 1--WE always prize so
much the good we have not" And
Maud thrust herself into the sunlight,
pleasing herself with a sad pleasure, by
exaggerating in the slanting rays the
Slight deformity indicated rather than
developed in her person.
While standing thus, her deformity
hidden now in the long black hair, which
she often allowed to fall lose from a
scarlet cincture round herhe she heard
again the tramp of hoofs eareering bois-
terously down the hill; and moment
after, furious plunge, a woman's shrill
scream, and Horace's voice calling loud
" for help, woke up the still evening.
One bound, ike the spring of a
N a.. on1 MarH