Orleans independent standard. [volume] (Irasburgh, Vt.) 1856-1871, 1864-04-08

am some one you have met, or the
didbte-it's quite proper to say it in
French, you know
Then she laughed heartily, displaying
teeth white and fine as slice of cocoa
nut.
How puzzled you do look ? she ex-
claimed. 'Dear me, hope foreign
tour has done me more good 7
She changed her voice suddenly, and
called, in the peculiar phraseology Of
Pennsylvania, and a voice that carried
me at once back among is bills.
"Hirty, Hiuy The red ceow'll be in
the corn derights--scoot arter her do :
'Mehitable Flint! ! | exclaimed, the
mystery clear as nooLdsy in flash.
Refined into Mabel FIinton, and quite
at your service returned she, with a low
courtesy. DO come into the house
I've oceans of things to say! Oh ! its
so nice to be natural just for change.
Come income in.
She pulled me, INCREASINGLY, into the
cottage, seated me in an easy chair by
the window, and placed herself opposite,
graceful as a bird, and yet aching all the
while, from her desire to impress me
with the alterations time had made.
You look bewildertd stil,' said she.
I'm tell you all about myself, and save
you the trouble of hunting for pretty
words to express your curiosity.
As far as my own recollections ex-
tended, | shall tell you about her in my
own way.
Ten years before, | had been sent to
spend the summer with relative in
Pennsylvania. was a mere child, but
quite old enough to appreciate Mehitable
Flint nearer at her real value than did
the people of the neighborhood.
She was sixteen at that time some
what overgrown, and not pretty, except
with the promise which had since devel.
oped into a piquancy more attractive
than real beauty.
She was the daughter of poor wild
ow; her father had rid them of his
presence three years before, dissipated,
worthless man, safer under the sod than
above it.
With his death, the girls character
began TO develop its energy. The man
to whom they applied to make the coffin,
demurred, on the score that there was
nobody to pay him. Hetty overheard
the remark and flashed out on him.
Make it, and Ill pay YOU said she,
and there was such truth in her face, that
ashamed of his coarse objection, the me
chanic performed his task, and, before
the winter was over, Hetty had fulfilled
her share of the bargain.
Paying for her fathers coffin was the
girls first start in life. If you cannot
understand all the effect it had upon her
character, you are duller Of compreben-
sion than think.
Make herself another existance ? She |
would do it, and when a woman OF Hetty
Flint's character says, i will count the
thing done.
She worked in the summer in far.
mer's kitchen, quick as a fire fy, and
tidy beyond belief, and studied at night.
when anybody with less energy would
have been PROSTATE with fatigue. In the
winter, she sewed to pay her board and
tuition in a town not far distant, which
possessed a school capable of affording
the girl more solid knowledge than a
stylish establishment would have given
in halt life.
That summer knew her. She was
living in old Mr.. Locke's family, her
mother was dead, and her circumstances
had bettered, so that she earned sufii-
cient livelihood with her needle.
She was seventeen then, full seven
years older than but we became fast
friends.
/ gave her novels and books of poetry
to read, and 10 me alone she confided
her dreams and aspirations, changed and
renovated, fancy, by those self same
fictions.
4 shall be either a great actress, or a
Duchess she used to say.
was content to accept her word for
it, without any thought of the manner in
which such a transformation was to take
place, and helped her weave all sorts of
brilliant romances, first upon one founda-
ton. and then the other.
went back to my home, and saw no
more of Hetty Flint from that time.
Poor girl! The next years were dark
ones, so bard to live through, that many
a soul would have succumbed; but Het-
ba hlaek