Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1872-05-10
in THE BROOK.

Sylvia Dare had come back. This
piece of news, whispering from one to
another, was enough to set all the caps
in Baybrook nodding, and to stir the
village into ripple of unusual excite
ment.
wish could make you see Bay
brook as it stood that day, knee-deep
in fallen yellow leaves, and trimmed by
mountain ranges of pale blue which
seemed melting into the pale Novem-
Der sky. Hush was the predominant
character of the place. The bare and
songless woods into which the long
street plunged at either end, where it
sought the open country, were no stiller
than the village at it's busiest center.
There was absolutely no sound in the
air, no voices, no hammers, no stir of
occupation, only the cawing of crows
in the fields, aud one faint shrek from
a distant locomotive ten miles away.
The closely-shuttered houses looked
dumb and lifeless. There was life
enough going on in back regions,-
life, and hard domestic rial,-but it
was not visible to the road. The men
of the place, gathered in the customary
circle about the post-office store, con.
versed, if at all, in low husky tones,
varying their talk with the life and in
terest of frequent expectoration. The
sidewalk was deserted. Once or twice
in the course of the morning woman
with fiuttering garments passed along,
or lodged into this door or that, but
her presence brought no relief to the
prevailing sense of lifelessness, or
broke it only with that slight surprise
which we experience when some bird,
a robin or belated woodpecker, brushes
by us in the wintry woods.
But for all this peaceful exterior,
Bay brook did not lack its gossips. In
the remote kitchens, where SO much
unseen business was done, great inter-
change of neighborly chat was going
on. At Mis- Wilders, for instance, old
Mis- Philbrick had run over "'cross
lots" to interview her crony on the topic
of the day, and Mis- Wilder, taking out
her knitting and banishing " the girls"
in clumsily contrived erland to the
buttery, had fairly settled down for en-
ioyment. While Hepsy and Pris, i'll
dignant at being sent off, and on very
tip-top of curiosity, were doing their lit
tie ali to overhear through the chink of
the door.
Who's Sylvia Dare ?" asked Pris,
catching the name amid the tantalizing
hum, hum, hum of the low voices.
81 don't know" replied Hepsy, with
wide open eyes. Somebody awful, I
guess"
Poor Sylvia! 1t was not so very long
ten or twelve years at utmost-since
she left her native village, and already
her name was a strange one in the ears
of the generation who now usurped her
place. She wasn't somebody awful
then. The elders remembered her, a
willful, beautiful girl, carrying all be-
fore her with the insolence of youth
and vanity, flirting now with this
young man, now with that, and break
ing more than one heart. They recol-
lected the time of her brief en- gagement
to Phil Thorpe-tbs ikeliest fellow in
the county-and his wretched looks
when, some months after it was all bro
ken off, she vanished from home to re-
turn no more. "Gone on long visit
to some friends in York" old Miss
Dare said, in last effort to save her
darling's credit; but a year later, when
she lay dying, the poor aunt confessed
the truth,-she did not know where
Sylvia was, she had never known
neither word nor sign had come from
the child since she went away. A dark
cloud of surmise rested thenceforward
over the fate OF the village beauty,
| never lifted until now, when, marvel
Gus to relate, she had come back.
" But when did she come back 2"
| asked Mis- Wilder.
+" Last night" replied Mis- Philbrick,
bringing her cap nearer. "Jehiel For
bes was to the depot with his team, and
| he fetched her over. She didn't speak,
| nor give no sign who she was, and
he never mistrusted at first-she
was so changed / Not much of han d.
some Sylvie Dare left, reckon. But
| by and-by he asked where did she want
to be set down? and she says, says she,
in kind of hesitating voice, is old
Miss Dare alive yet?' And then Jehiel
he said, Why, no; Mis- Dare died a
long piece back, not more'n ayear after
her niece went off, And at that she
kind of choked, and pulled down her
veil, and then Jehiel guessed. So he
didn't say anything more till they got
real near the village, and then he asked
again where would she be set down
And at first she didn't answer, and then
she said: oh, don't know drive to
the house where Miss Dare used to live.
Perhaps they'll take me there to board,
says she, and she burst right out crying
Jehiel says he felt real bad, and he took