Vermont farmer. [volume] (Newport, Orleans County, Vt.) 1870-1877, 1872-12-13

''NNy AVA 'hO poA hoti ~ OiOWtbi huu HJ seii
were still undergraduates but preparing for the
Honor Schools next term and we had pitch
ed upon Sandbeach as the quietest place on
the map. II was not so quiet, however, but
that we soon found people made plenty of
noise there about their neighbors' concerns
and IL must have been on the very morning
after our arrival, that we were informed by
our landlady of this sigularly beautiful and
odd girl who had come to Sandbeach, hoping
to find situation "ioitdout references, Just
as if she thought all the people in these parts
we're mad-folk, gentlemenw In the course
of a week, having become intimate with
Butts, he treated us to further details
though we had not asked him to do so. But
he was full Of his subject, and so were all
the other Sandboachers this event being the
nearest approach TO a scandal with which the
town had ever been favored. It seemed
that two families had answered Miss Child's
advertisement; but they had been able to eic-
it nothing satisfactory as to her antecedents,
and so, Of course, had receded. All Miss
Child would say, was, that her mother was
dead, aud that she had never kno wn her ia.
Their, who had deserted her mother years ago.
AT first her mother had seemed in easy cir
cumstances; afterwards they had become
very poor, and had been obliged to work
with their needles for their living How
long was it since her mother had died ? Six
years. And what had she-Mi Cbild-done
since? Worked. Where? This she reiused to say;
aud she would neither state where her mother
had lived, nor how it came that she herself,
after being reduced to live by needlework,
was suddenly in position to apply for a
place as governoss. To the last inquiry,
she had simply answered that she had met
with some people "who had been good to
her,"
All this was extremely suspicious. Butts
appeared to consider it premeditated affront
upon Sandbeach, that any one should come
there not prepared to give the fullest account,
in print if need were, of his OF her life from
birthday upwards. He doubted whether he
was justified in letting her subscribe to his
library, and take home books which would
afterwards pass into the immaculate hands
Of visitors having references. To be sure
she seldom came now TO his reading.room to
look at The Times advertisements as she
had done at first. The lady-subscribers had
stared her out Of countenance, observed chill
ling silence in her presence, drawn their skirts
hastily away to avoid her contact as she pass
ed, and done other things that were most
natural aud proper under the circumstances.
But now and then she would come to bring
back books, and borrow others and a few
days ago, added Butts, she had glided in
timidly at nightfall, and brought him dozen
water.color sketches, asking him whether he
saw any hope of selling them. He had kept
the sketches out of curiosity and shown them
to some of his lady-subscribers, who had
been much amused at the girls impuder e.
Naturally he had not been able to sell any,
nor was he sure that he would consent to do
SO, even had the chance occurred for one
should never encourage people whom one
does not know. This is what Butts said.
We were loungiDg over the counter, cut
ting the leaves of new magazines, skimming
through the papers and inspecting the libra
ry catalogues.
"Let us see the sketches, Butts" asked
Hasey, who, like the rest of us, had, from
the outset of his acquaintaneeship with the
Sandbeach magnate, discarded the name
"Mr" as superAuous.
GAS the women are making such dead
set at the girl, it is obvious she is pretty"
remarked Merry, whose character was, con.
trary to the usual rule, not out Of keeping
with his name. 81 even suspect that, since
Our friend Butts talks so lightly of the
sketches, there must be some merit in them. "
But no there was no merit in them
whatever, except such as comes from patient
work misapplied. Butts, who was quite
impervious to sarcasm from not understand
ing what it meant, produced the sketches
out Of drawer, and laid them before US
with kind Of expostulatory shrug. They
were views of Sandbeach and neigborhood,
the sea by day and by moonlight, and dis
played only the most elementary knowl-
edge of coloring. Poor simple drawings
they were, with dabs OF blue for sky,
gray for sea, aud brown for shiuge. 1t was
schoolgirl art,-not so bad as to be absurd,
not good enough to be worth glance.
Merry, Cloves, and threw look over
them, and no more. Cloves, who was bit
Of cynic, even said something tart about
teaching girls to waste paper aud colors in
stead Of instructing them to bake and spin.
But Halsey collected the sketches, and, after
going through them cursorily, began to pore
over them one by one, with deep attention,
as if there were beauties in them which we
had failed to discover, but which we're yis.
bic to him. When he reached the last, he
held it almost five minutes before his eyes :
then, like a good fellow that he was, with a
manly sympathy for all that was weak and
suffering, he exclaimed, "Poor little thing !!
Imagine girl trying to hire herself out to
teach her poor scraps of knowledge, and be-
ing rebuffed everywhere because there is u
miserable secret in her young life which she
wishes to conceal. Perhaps it is her moth
ers or her fathers honor which she is en-
deavoring to cloak. But Butts there and
his lady-patrons don't choose to perceive