Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1872-12-05

NCdl NIdOlc l'O'ii viz 'SllJ poIVoli VI
her heart. No servants; no silver
napkin rings; no double damask table
cloths with embroidered monograms
on them; no carriage; no Wilton car
pete, nor brocatel curtains. What
would life be worth without these?
And then, too, she lived so outlandish-
ly-actually dining in the middle of
the day, and having-good fates pork
and cabbage occasionally and fried
onions Mrs. Linley was quite sure
that she could no have existed under
such fearful concentration Of circum-
stances.
"Of course we must continue to visit
them said Myra, inhahng the Lubin
perfume from her Valenciennes edged
pocket handkerchief, "but really l am
quite ashamed to have our carriage
seen in such a commonplace street"
"She's your sister" said Mr.. Linley,
"and Genis is good fellow, after all.
81 know it, but common mechan-
ic!" And Myra took out her perl tab
let's to look over her visiting list.
Grace Genlis knew very well that
Mr.. Gustavus Linley despised her and
her low estate, but Grace cared not
two pins for that-why should she?
Was she not happy as Queen Victoria's
self in her snug little house, with love
to brighten tEs lDng ceilings and beau
tify the maple wood furniture.
"Grace is a pearl of price, thought
the young husband, as he watched her
thrifty housewifery, "and some day she
shall shine in proper setting as well
as Gustavus Linley's conceited doll of
u wife. She shall, or my name is not
Walter Genlis!"
Mrs. Linley did not find herself en-
tirely inconsolable when Walter Gen
lis accepted an offer from California
firm to come out as head machinist,
and her sister went away.
'lts inst as we'll" thought Myra,
'1or she wanted to give a series of Ger
mans this winter, and couldn't have
been mortally offended! Now its all
right"'
And the years passed by, and Myra
Linley forgot" to answer her sisters
letters so often that, at length, Grace
left off writing, and Mrs, Linley became
a bright star in the world OF fashion,
and enjoyed the false, artificial life as
one enjoys fevered excitement of any
kind.
One evening Mr.. Linley came in
late, but he often did that. Myra glanc-
ed languidly up from the book she was
skimming over, not because she enjoy
ed reading, but because it was a fash
ionablc work, and she wanted to say
she had read it-and noticed that his
face was preturbed
"What is the matter?' she inquired,
little startled by his look,
THE NATTER" returned Gustavus,
deliberately seating himself opposite
her, 'is that we are ruined!
"What do you mean?"
Simply that we are pennilesS-beg-
gars-haven't a cent in the world, and
debts enough to sink the Spanish Ar
mada "
Myra looked at him in blank dismay.
"And what are we going to do ?"
'Do? Why do as other people dol"
savagely answered her husband. "Go
into the second story of a tenement
house and starve! !!
Mrs. Linley fell into weak, sobbing
Mysteries. Her husband, not needing
her, sat staring moodily at the floor.
at must be a horrible dream" groan-
ed Myra "it can't be true!'
But unfortunately, it acas true, and
in something less than a week Mrs.
Linley, her husband, and her three
children, found themselves the inmates
of a tawdry, third-rate boarding house;
while Gustavus vainly tried to obtain
situation somewhere as clerk, and
Myra cried and scolded alternativcly,
and wished so many times day that
she were dead that Gustavus finally
lost all patience, and intimated, darkly,
that che wished so, too. D."
And then Myra called him a "horrid
brute" and cried more persistently
than ever