Vermont farmer. [volume] (Newport, Orleans County, Vt.) 1870-1877, 1873-02-28

home, my dear"
What is the secret Of happy home,
Cousin Lucy--meat aud drink the more
shame to those who make it so" protested
Gena, Indignantly; 81 won't believe it of
AL Woodruff"
Mrs. Woodruff continued cold Indifferent
and little ironical.
Gena was good deal dazzled by the ra-
pidity and dash of Helen Carringtons mar
riage, and thought little discontentedly
that her own undeclared, underlined engage.
ment to AL Woodruff was slow affair, by
comparison.
just at this time, Gena was taken up by
new acquaintance who came down to occupy
Clifford Manor. They were not the family
OF the squire who ruled in the room OF the
| Cliffords; he was abroad, but he had given
his place for a season to friends of the name
of Paulet. Any occupants of the Manor
had strong interest to the Cliffords, not the
less agreeable that 1t had tinge OF meau-
choly, for melancholy with them had all the
charm of Millions II Peuseroso; - they
quite throve on melancholy they might be
said, like Burton, to live and die on it.
Moreover, family OF good name, such as
the Pauets, was like good game to the keen
scent Of the Cliffords' genealogical noses.
Mr.. Clifford picked out in no time, every
quartering of the Paulet shield, and demon
strated beyond mistake that there was re-
lation between the Paulet wyverns, and the
wyverns sometimes seen in the Clifford coat
of arms--in fact, that the families must have
intermarried and been connected more than
once, in the remotcr stages of their high aud
mighty annals
The Paulets who took possession Of Cliff
ford Manor we're a father, Sir Francis, wild.
over like Mr.. Clifford, and daughter like
| Gena; but the Pauets were much more like
brother aud sister than father and daughter.
Though Clemency Paulet was the youngest
of three children, of whom another daughter
was married, while the son of the family was
in India with his regiment, yet Sir Francis
was no more than forty-6ve, a stal gart,
handsome, well-preserved man; while Glen.
ency, at twenty, had run the gauntlet of
three seasons, and an experienced and some-
what used.up young lady, quite old compared
with Gena Clifford, who found, for that
matter, the daughter much older than the
father, since Gena had been accustomed to
be the constant companion of men much
older-Mr. Clifford, who had married late in
life, being sixty, and MIR. Devil 6fty.eight
But, above all, Sir Francis had possessed
faculty opposite to any exercised by his
daughter, that of keeping young. He could
shoot from morning till night, his voice was
as mellow as ever in the accompaniment of
song, he was as good as ever for an escort at
a picnic party, or as partner on a croquet
green.
Both father and daughter, in the isolation
of new neighborhood rather thinly studdel
with country houses, took kindly to the dis
possessed owners of Clifford Manor, who had
the grace to receive the newcomers with all
the hospitality which the Cliffords' circum-
stances would allow Sir Francis, secure in
his own rank and income, was above being
Influenced by the reality that these, his
equals in birth and education were poorer in
purse than many of the substantial yeomen
around them, except that he was prompted
to more punctiious attention TO the Clifiords.
He had sufficiently aesthetic tastes of every
kind, though he was more OF dabber than
proficient student in any study, to relish the
Cliffords' accomplishments 10 their own line.
As for Clemency, she said Geua was
dear, unsophisticated thing. showing her ORR
gin by being free from every trace of odious
vulgarity and gawky awkwardness, and yet
she was as naive and fresh as a poets milk.
mad. 1t was quite delight to cultivate
her, and bring her out here in the country.
giving her taste Of life which palled all too
soon-only little Gena would never know
that; to play her part in which, to have her
seasons at home and abroad, if it had not
been for the misfortune of the family, the
girl was as well entitled as any Of "us."
Clemency Paulet ended, with slightly os.
tentatious arrogance, gently-born Pauot
though she was
Mr.. Clifford aud Mr. Devil, without being
capable Of so much as dwelling themselves
to subserviency, were in their element cica.
roning Sir Francis, and meeting and recipro-
eating his advances. Gena was charmed TO
be up three days in the week at the Manor,
the Cliffords' old Manor, with which, though
she had been born in the farmhouse, aud al
though all the furniture at the Manor was
changed, she was as fondly familiar from
hearsay as if she had spent her entire life
there, so that she could have walked blind.
fold from the old buttery to the oratory and
from the armory to the muic-room She
would amuse Miss Paulet by illustrating
some recent arrangements Of jardinieres anl
pOrtieres by the comment Grandmamma
had her great orange and myrtle tubs in that
bay-window;" or, There my grand-unclc F.
Peregrine, would have his Chinese screen
Papa and Uncle Devil have so often told me
how everything looked and stood" At the |.
same time Gena often forgot all about old use
aud wont in the Manor, when she was snugIy
enscouced with Cemency Paulet in the lat.
ter's dressing-room, listening to Cemency's |
stories, languidy graphic, and like fairy !
tales aud pages Of delightful old letters to /.
Gena-oi the Park and the Row, the crush /
room at the Opera, Wilis's Rooms, of this |
or that great danes at home," Of the last /
breakfast at Richmond, the going down to /
Goodwood just when the world was leaving
town. Thus it was that certain hard
worKing6gure, aud an unvarnishcd, unadorned /
picture of the future which had been begiu-
ming to wax stale, fat, and Improbable, and /
little gruesome in the girl of eighteen's |
round eyes, waned more aud more during this |
the gayest and most brilliant autumn of |
Gena's life However, by another spring |
and summer a year would be out, Al Wood |
rufe might consider his probation ended, and
return aud make his power felt in tug Of |
war with Genas new allies.
But Al did not return-not though love, |
as well as 6lial affection, called him Had .
Geua been 10 correspondence with him, or
even in frank intercourse with his mother, or
had she come in special contact with his
father, she would have known that there
we're good and sufficient reasons for AIS de.
lay, which he hoped, month after month,
would come to a speedy end An overwork-
ed brother curate, terribly poor man, with
sickly wife and house full of young children,