The weekly Oskaloosa herald. [volume] (Oskaloosa, Iowa) 1855-1885, 1872-10-03

Lawrence letting such fortune slip
through his fingers. An only child
she is ; heavy settlement she would
have; and Lawrence could leave the
army, and such palace as he could
make of the Burbridge place. de.
clare, l don't know what to do
Perhaps Miss Rodney, who had
already seen good deal of the world
was not much inundated by her
conversation with Mrs. Burbridge, or
else she had conceived some interest
in Rose Marks own identity, and
wanted to see if it amounted to any
thing in itself F.; for she was standing
at the door as Rose dashed up to the
steps at the end of her ride.
'What lovely horse,' said Miss
Rodney, as Lawrence handed Miss
Rose down and presented her to his
cousin.
'Oh /! beauty. Isn't he p cried
the sweet voice of Rose Marks. 'My
birthday present from papa. Oh
you don't know what kind, dear old
father he is. There he comes. This
is my father, Miss Rodney. Mr.. Bur
BRIDGES cousin, papa Aud as the
little figure straig htened itsen,sany-
one might see that the child was
prouder of her father than if he had
been a prince.
Mr.. Marks bowed with some
what stiff and cold air, that would
have seemed like haughtiness, if
haughtiness from him, the rich pie
beian, to Miss Rodney, of the blue
blood, would not have been prepos-
tercus. Then he asked Rose if her
ride had been pleasant, and walked
on beside young Mr.. Dunlap, with
his head down and the evening paper
of the day before, which had only
come in couple of hours since,
clasped in his hands behind him.
He is plotting some new mischief,
thought Miss Rodney. And Rose
kissed her fingers to him when ne
glanced back, and then ran up stairs ;
and smile shone on his face like a
burst of sunlight in an autumn wood,
if SO poetical figure suited we'll any
expression OF a face scanned over
with so m any fine wrinkles that it re-
sembled a multiplication table.
Lawrence was waiting for her when
she came down to dinner, an hour
later and so was young Mr.. Far
rem and SO was Roger Dunlap, too
the last a clerk of Err. Marks. But
Lawrence's cavalry air had way of
distancing competitors, and it was
his arm she took. She was fairly
resplendent in her fresh young beau
ty, clad in a white garment, whose
skirts and ruffies surrounded her with
suggestion of white rose petals, and
wearing pale coral ornaments of Ne
apolitan carving. On the coral sticks
of her point lace fan glittered sprays
of diamonds, and diamond butter
f1y twinkled as it danced on its spiral
amidst a stem of coral berries, In her
yellow hair. And so catching all
eyes and winning all hearts with her
loveliness she went to the sGmptuous
dinner, with its trout and game and
dainties, it's mountain berries, deli
cious CONNECTIONS and early oranges
the Moselle- Muscatel wine and the
Notwithstanding and happy and
pleased with all the world. AS Mr..
Dunlap took his seat at the table with
her father, and looked at her bril-
lance and gayety, he could not help
remembering the scenes he had wit
messed only the day before, at ten,
ement house of her fathers, where
an errand had sent him, and revolted
him, unaccustomed to any but the
counting-room work, which hardly
revealed details in their squalor.
He recalled the street, reeklng
with stenches under the July sun,
beneath which glass would have
stood at more than a hundred, and
where not a breath Of wind was
blowing the great rude building,
whose scorching bricks radiated the
heat like furnace, till the very air
seemed baked /; the loathsome en-
tries, foul and tetid and thronged,
and on the first of which, before the
heat had come, water had plainly
stood in pools he saw the great rats
that disputed place with the dirty,
half naked children on the wicked
stairway the garbage lying every.
where in heaps the smell of fever
through the air. Women had come
out there with uncombed heads and
filthy tongues, and had accosted him;
men had been lying drunk and sick
and sunstruck in the rooms he passed;
he heard swearing and cursing and
children crying on every side. And
/ alf suffocated and wholly heart-sick
he was ready to swear and cry him,
self, with the awful thoughts and
sights and sounds and smells. He
passed room there, he remembered,
where six miserable girls herded to.
gether. They might have been glad
and sweet, if not as lovely, as this
girl, with food and rest and ignor
ance of care and sin. But they braid.
ed hats in a mandatory for twenty
cents a day and they paid together
hundred dollars year for then
one room, and lived on crackers
with not enough OF those. They had
no place for baths. and no soap, nc
towels, no time they had no dress
but one old gown and . shawl; theil
| hair had all been cut off long ago and
sold they never read, they had nc
lights, no books, no pennies to buy
| papers their single luxury was {
broken scrap of looking glass, il
which, they were SO wretched, they
had ceased to look ; they rose before
| day and they labored till dark and
for the rest they vegetated, and 6
mold and mildew seemed to have
fallen upon them. One of them was
singing, as he went by, low, sac
strain-a single remembrance meas
ure of an old childish tune. She sung
it over and over, AS if she had for
gotten what she did, till another
peevishly begged her to be DONE
He remembered, too, the room still
higher up, where child lay dying
dying as mnch from starvation, the
starvation of father and mother be-
fore he was born, as from anything
else. The young clerks orders had
been to collect the rent there, or turn
the people out. He hesitated at the
scene before him. From that high
room in the hot roof he could see 9
CLEAN of the sunset and the river
The child had been lifted for the
sight or for the air; and he lay IL