The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1873-09-17
How Young Lady Feels When She ia
~" Engaged.

The following Intercepted letter
from the Home Journal, tells how
funnily young miss feels wher
surreptitiously engaged:
DEAR ALLIE: I have got real
live, grown-up beau, and isn't il
jolly? He's perfectly splendid, just
like those lovely wax figures in
the windows, only they can't use
their lips. It's my French teacher
and he says "ma petite" just like {
cooling dove, and he always smells Sc
sweet of pond liliesl I don't har,
anything to do with the boys now
Those little boys of seventeen ant
eighteen do very we'll when there ART
no men around, if they can get money
enough from their pas to buy US Gun
theirs candies, but they can't amus'
US girls Of fourteen. They seem jus
like babies, and when they try, t.
mako love-O, my! aren't they mushy
Now, Monsieur Fontaine acts as if hi
had been engaged twenty times, al
though I'm his first love; but WI
don't let on before ma and Thuse. i
makes Arethusa awful mad to have
me call her Thuse, and that's the .rea
son I do it. / heard her ask ma tht
other day if that Frenchman's man
ners wero not too familiar towArc
that child. Child! She's awfully
afraid of my being Il young lady
What need she care, now she's mar
ried? Wasn't she spooney, though
about Fred When be used to come
to see her, I would drag Tommy into
the room and put my arm around hit
waist and squeeze his hand until hel
face would be as red as beets Such
fun! Z caught her kissing him once
such little nipping kiss, just as il
she were tasting pepper sauce. Now;
if I pretended to kiss man, I'd do il
in right good earnest-just plant my
feet square on the ground and give il
to him, sure pop, right on the lips. Q
Allie, poor Thuse would 60 of on a
dead faint at my low-bred expressions
and inform me for the nine hundred
and ninth time that my name is Ellis
worth, just as if I didn't know my
own name; !; and what does it matter
anyway, when I expect to change il
80 soon ? I do not intend to hang on
to it till I am a horrid old maid, like
poor old Mrs. Tracy opposite. She
might bo o warning to the strongest
minded. She's nervous, and how ]
DO love to scare her. promised
Tommy the other day five cents
worth of peanuts to let me hold him
out of the third-story window. He'd
let me skin him for q paper Of pea,
nuts. So I got him out him out, and
kuelt down under the window lodge
where I conduit be seen, and held
tight hold OF his wrists. Thuse thinks
my strength is disgusting. Pretty
soon there was an elderly shrek, and
then an elderly form rushed across
the street to mother; but by the time
thoy got upstairs. was seated quietly
at my crochet work and Tommy was
turning somersaults on the bed over
the lovely futed pillow cases. And
ma still thinks it is poor Miss Tracy
that is "a little wild at times"
I lovo my brother Fred over so
much, but l don't see how he ever
camc to fancy such a dicaway speci-
men as our Thuse. Because she is so
awfully pretty, 7 suppose; but she
just turns him round her thumb. If
he refuses to get what she wants, she
| just looks like martyr in tho flames,
and lets down all her back hair like
the Magdalens in the picture gallery.
And although tboy are real pretty
hanging on the walls, even an artist
does not want to sit at the table three
times a day opposite a live one, with
her eyes rolled up and her hair down
her back. So poor Fred always gives
in, and she smiles o forgiving smile,
puts up her hair and goes off to buy
the fine silk or the set of jewelry
that has taken her fancy. And when
she gets it she keeps tight hold Of it.:
too. She has never given mo even a
cuff button. Thusc always was stin-
gy. Ard she is SO stuck up because
She has got son, just as if it were
something wonderful. Why, Mrs.
Tubbs, our laundrcss, has eight of
them, besides ono that was drowned
und one scalded and she isn't o bit
set up, but Arethusa says "my boy p
and does the maternal all to pieces.
She thinks Alexis is made out Of nicer
materials than most babies. and /
know sho doesn't believe the cate
chism where it says he was made out
Of tho vulgar dust of tho earth. l
suppose sho thinks rose leaves and
corn starch were used to make up his
delicate organization. 1t would re-
hicvo my feelings to sec spcck OF
dirt on that child's face; it makes me
ache to sec him so painfully clean.
And she is all the tilno feeling his
bumps, because she thinks he is 60
| ing to bo q little Solomon, or some
humbug or other.
Now, Allie, I have got secret that
YOU mustn't tell to living soul. II
You do will never forgive You. !
have promised Monsieur Fontaino to
bo married in three weeks, on my
fourteenth birthday, and il mother
seems likely to object, we are going
to clopc, just like the girls in the
novels. Won't it bo splendid? Just
think of what q sensation it will