The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1868-09-23
ARUDDERLEsS.S


Nan and Eve lived together at
Appledecombe. This is not very
respectful way to speak of them,
because, while Nan was but girl,
Eve Was9a married woman AMI her
mother but then she was young,
so absurdly young, to beythe mother
of a grown-up daughter like Nan,
that it seems more natural to call
her SO, than by ner pretty and rather
romantic appellation of Mrs. Ashley.
And Shouldn't be objected that Nan
is too obviously put into the more
honorable position, I can only plead
that Nam was by far the more i'm
portant. Why look at their lives.
Eve had. married, while still but q
child-a very pretty half-grown up
child she had then had Nan, and
her husband had died; after which,
as to allschange, all excitement in her
existence, there was written up
against ititbe word Finis. She was
very sweet, very gracious, and the
country all around loved and cherish
ed her as something of gem; but it
had come to be an understood thing
that the story of her life had been
told, and she was now only living for
Nan. But woman can be quite as
loveable, and very often great deal
more useful, when the story of her
life has been told, and she has leisure
to devote herself to others; and Eve
was, with many, to the full as popu-
lar as her little daughter. Truth to
say, she was utterly unselfish, sym
pathetic by nature, and very fair to
look upon. It was so delightful to
talk to Eve, said the girls, whilst
giving her O minute account of their
last fancy fair, because she knew all
about it; Eve, who had walked from
the school-room TO the church, and
had entered into woman's estate,
without ever having once shared in
their pleasures. And the men, all
the young men from the village,
poured into her ears full accounts Of
their latest love affairs, and gathered
from her sympathy that she well
understood from experience; Eve,
the course of whose love had run
smoothly up to the last sad ending,
and who was innocent as very child
of the endless little channels through
which it may flow. r.
Much more 80, indeed, than her
own child, who was gaining q very
fair knowledge of the troubles and
pleasures of that passion, upon the
axis of which it is said the world that
we live in turns round. For, though
Nan was guarded like hot-house
flower, and held sacred as link be-
tween'the living and dead, Eve could
not entirely shield her from great
many evils she brought on herself.
BY no rule that applied to other girls
could you read Nan. She would say
one thing, mean another, and expect
that her thoughts should be OWNED.
She would sit and sparkle at her mo-
ther all her little quaint sayings an
evening through; then an organ in
the street, touching, in some dreary
old tune, one of Mans most delicate
chords, she would burst out crying
where she sat, and when mother,
alarmed, astonished, panied, would
take her in her arms, to comfort and
console. the room gould be ringing
with laughter, before the girls tears
were dry on her cheeks. .t.
Cant help it, mamma, she would
say, "Igo up and down as if all my
insides were made of elastic. One
moment l am down in the depths,
and the next some absurd spring
inside me goes up, and it seems so
ridiculous for me to be sitting howl
ing on the floor about nothing, and
you look at me with such long face,
that [ am obliged to laugh"
Which, for one of Mans state
ments, was unusually correct, If
there had only prizes been given for
laughter and tears, how MANY of
both Nan would have gained in q
year. ~ l.f4ff9,
Only il will be seen that she was in
some sort an anxiety to her mother.
even while Eve believed there was
not, among girls, her equal in the
world. Her whole heart was wrap.
ped up in her child, except such
portion of it as was buried in the
waters with her husband. and the