Vermont farmer. [volume] (Newport, Orleans County, Vt.) 1870-1877, 1872-09-27
I'm THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD.
BY LOUISE CHANDLER MoULTON.

In the whole wide world there was put one
Others for Others but she for me .
The one fair woman beneath the sun-J9hH Hoy
Three winters ago Mrs. Helen Maynadier
wa quite the fashion with certain literary
and artistic set in New York. She was nei-
Their author nor artist herself--at least she
was neither of set purpose; but sometimes
she would write a lovely little chanSon,
which it was quite the thing to sing, or sketch
some little picture, with hand so free it
showed she could have done more if she
would and both authors and artists val
ued her criticisms. She had been widow
for little more than two years, and had
Just taken off her grapes, and subsidized into
the fascinating, mitigated woe of half mourn
ing-violets and lilacs, and heavy, soft-fall-
IN black silks. Her mourning for the late
lamented Job Maynadier suggested sum in
the Rule of Three. AS so much grief is to
80 much Grape, so was the sorrow of Mrs,
Maynadier's heart to the blackness OF Mrs.
Maynadier's toilet; and as the sorrow of her
heart yns very slight, the blaekness OF her
toilet was very dense in order to preserve
the fitting proportion.
She was woman in her thirties-beau-
ty or no beauty, according to the eyes which
beheld her. "The loveliest face in the
world" some people said, sweetest eyes that
ever have shone, dearest lips that ever were
kissed" And "a we'll. enough woman, past
her youth, with nothing special about her,"
said other and colder judges. who being
also woman was not her lover, and being
honestly her friend did not envy her-saw
her, perhaps as she was. She had the charm
which q temperament veined, however thinly,
with genius always possesses charm lost
on commonplace people, but subtly powerful
with the very kind of worshippers whom ont
ly Helen Maynadier cared to attract.
There is no task more vain than to at
tempt to make picture off Woman whose
beauty is in her expression-in the shy, elu-
sive, womanly soul which looks through eyes
of gray or azure. What will you know more
of Helen Maynadier when | have told you
that her eyes were changeful things-now blue,
uOwgray, now hazel, varying as her mood vari-
ed, but laughing often, while yet 'her lips held
serious sweetness that she had bronze
brown hEff, and features not quite regular
that her rounded figure was womanly rather
than grlish2 You have yet no impression
Of her as che was woman with, it. must
have been, some charm Of her own, since so
many sought her.
OF late it had seemed that there was one
whose seeking might be not in vain; and
nothing could be more significant of Helen
Maynadier's character than the way she de-
liberated with herself concerning this same
sutton. Her married life, outwardly pros
porous, had been secretly one long misery.
Where she looked for tenderness, she had
found harshness; for faith, misconception
for appreciation, jealousy; in short, every
where, and at all times, for bread 4 stone.
A woman Of nature less sunny and sangulne
would surely have lost all faith in marriage,
but not SO Helen. She still believed that
somewhere was the love she had not found
"the heart that not yet, never yet, made an
swer to her need" And she looked about
her to discover this heart ip search as sim.
pie and sincere as Another woman might
have made for coveted jewel.
Her enemies said that she flirted but q
woman who loved her, and understood her
told the truth when she said, "Helen nevel
Airts; she only takes people on trial" This
was it. There was the vacant, waiting
place in her heart and never having known
the utter illumination, the sudden revealing
Of loVe-since her early marriage had come
about, as most early marriages do, of acct
dent rather than elect;on--she honestly
thought her only way to find whether any
applicant for this vacant situation suited
was to see good deal of him, and try how
far he had power to Satisfy and interest her
1t may have looked like Irritation; it pa,
candid and deliberate investigation instead
AS l said, there was just now candidate
whose claims she had held under 50 much
longer consideration than any of his prede-
OSssOrs, that his prospects might reasonably
be accounted good. Colonel Dalton possess