Bradford reporter. [volume] (Towanda, Pa.) 1844-1884, 1866-05-24

FlSlIOTS Win COruldl reCOlleCtlOH OI sum
mer weeks spent by her and her old maiden
servant in the country quarters at Cloven
ford, and attended them to the Assembly
where the minister procured the party's ad
mission. And Jess saw his Grace the
Commissioner was duly impressed by his
throne heard, with all the interest min
ister's daughter ought to feel, the question
of "teinds" amply discussed and just al
her high head, with its gypsy bonnet, was
beginning to nod in manner the most un
dignifed and unlike Jess, and when she
was thinking she could not keep her eyes
open moment longer, though the Commits
sioner asked it of her as a personal favor
or threatened to turn her out by his usher
if he caught her mapping, the vote was ta
KEN and Jess was released, to repair tC
Aunt Peggy's and her bed.
The next morning the minister and Jess
were abroad betimes, while Aunt Peggy
gave herself wholly to solemn preparations
for the midday dinner The walk was for
Jess's pleasure, that she might see again
the more remote rugged lion couchant, Ar
thurs Seat, and the nearer, smooth, pol
ished, glittering lions, the shops and the
passengers. Among the fellow-passengers
of Jess and the minister, while there were
some women who ridicued the country cut
of Jess's black silk pelisse, there was more
than one man who turned to look after the
pair, and remark what noble-looking
lass that was with the gray, stout, old
black coat
The minister had fully discharged his OBJ.
legations as cicerone. He had pointed
out the "Whte Hart" at which Dr. John.
son alighted on his way to his tout in the
Hebrides the booksellers shop where
Robbie Burns, in boots and tops, with a
riding-whip dangling over his arm, once
corrected proofsheets of his songs; Rich
ardson's, frequented by young Mr. Scott
the author of the poem of Marmion the
houses of Professors Dugald Stewart and
Sir John Hall, Captain Basil, the great
travellers father and the Flesh Market
Close, where the best beefsteaks in the
kingdom were to be eaten. And Jess had
wondered, but found it impossible to ask,
whether they were near the street where
| she remembered Sandy's lodgings had been,
and where it was Just within nature he
might be.
Father" said Jess, suddenly, with a
rush of color into her face, 81 would like to
go in here"
Mr. Stewart and Jess had been proceed
ing on the plan of Il fair division of labor
and recreation. The minister's part per-
formed, he had been walking along abstrac-
tedly, only waking up occasionally at the
distant glimpse of book-stall, where Jess
stood quietly beside him. as he stood qui-
etly beside Jess when the attraction was a
linen-draper's or jewellers window
The minister had lnuuirt.t1 n Hrs. ho+
er she wanted anything, and Jess, after a
few modest purchases, had answered in the
negative ; bnt he supposed now she had
met with an irresistible temptation, or re-
called forgotten commission. He followed
her into the entrance of what looked more
like museum than shop, and yielded up
his stick, not without an inclination to re-
sist the demand, to a porter, while Jess
was hurriedly getting two tickets.
The minister stopped short in the door
way OF another room, aggrieved and ireful;
but he had never turned back in his life,
never refused to face an annoyance or a
difficulty, and his hesitation terminated in
his marching sulkily at the heels of Jess
into one of the Royal Society's earliest ex-
hibitions.
The minister and Jess entered Into no ex-
planation and offered no comment as they
walked slowly up the room, literally daz-
zled by the display on the walls. How
ever connoisseurs might have disdained
the crude attempts of Wilkie, Allan and
Thomson, they were marvels to the coun-
try folk, who were only acquainted with
the simpering or scowling representations
of ladies, like full-blown roses in their own
persons, clasping rose-buds between their
fingers and thumbs, and gentlemen with
fierce tops of hair, breaking the seals of
letters, with as much cruel satisfaction as
if they had been crushing beetles. But all
at once both Jess and the minister's eyes
were fixed, while their feet were drawn to
picture some yards in advance of them,
which they could distinguish through the
scanty sprinkling of visitors at that hour in
the room.
1t was not one of the classic pieces,
which were the stock pieces there, nor of
the battlefield nor of the landscapes, but
little family group which was strangely
we'll known to them. They had seen the
round table, the STRAIGHTFORWARD chairs, the
very ivory netting-box, many a time be-
fore and even these dumb pieces of furni-
ture, so far from home, awoke a thousand
associations.
Then what of the figure, with living eyes
looking out at them? The elderly man
putting down his book to ponder its con-
tents the young man with his face half
hidden by his hand, as if weary or sad; the
girl entering the room on some household
errand; and she was there, setting in the
centre of them as she would sit no more,
looking not as she had looked when she
was passing away, not as Mr. Stewart with
a backward bound of his memory had been
given to see her lately, the innoceot, ingen-
uous, lovely girl who had come to the manse
of Clovenford, bringing with her sunshine,
poetry and the first tremulous dewy bloom
of life, but Sandy and Jess's mother, whose
presence, weak woman as she was, had
been like shelter and stay, full of the
security and serenity of experience, the
sweetness of the household content.
The drawing might be faulty, the color
ing streaky, but there again was the fam
lily, those of them who were still going
about the streets, and one who on this
earth was not. 1t was God-given faculty
aud loving heart which thus reproduced
and preserved the past.
The minister and Jess stood as if SPELL
bound among the unheeding spectators,