Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1873-08-08
MISS LASCELLES'S DISAPPEAR.
ANCE.

CARE you going to Saratoga, Nina ?"
"No."
'To Long Branch, then?"
"No."
"To the White Hills?"
"No."
''Then where are you going" was the
general cry.
81 am going to disappear" answered
Miss Lascelles; and it was the only an
swer her curious friends could get from
her, let them try as they would. At every
fresh surmise she shook her head and
smiled mysteriously. II am going to dis
appear" she persisted.
Miss Lascelles kept her word. She did
disappear, and nobody could find out
whittier. In fact, there was no one to find
out from, no one to whom she was in the
and goings. An orphan without near rel
atives-an heiress, mOreover-she was en-
tire mistress of herself, and had she pro-
posed to go to the moon, so far as this
earthly planet is Oncerned there would
have been nothing to hinder. But for
certain atmospheric difficulties being in
the way of such tour her acquaintances
would have been inclined to suspect it
was the very one she was making at pres
ent-that Out-of-the-way sort of thing eX-
actly tallying with her oddity; for, by
common consent, Nina Lascelles was
dubbed "odd;" bright, sensible, at.
tractive, certainly, but for all that with an
odd streak about her.
But where had Miss Lascelles gone?
Not quite as far as the moon, and yet to
region almost as remote from the sphere
of her dear five hundred friends One
day there had chanced to present itself to
her recollection the picture of certain
weather. beaten, gambrel-roofed house up
among the rocks and hills of one of the
Northern States, where she had passed
the happicst summer of her life. Miss
Lascclles thought she would like to try
if that old time could not be brought back
again. To be sure, she had been only
twelve then, and the tastes of twelve and
tWcnty-One are apt to be somewhat differ
ent but at least it would be novelty.
She was tired and over-tired of the pre-
scribed pleasure tread-mill, every step of
which she knew so wearily we'll Briefly,
she had set her heart on the experiment; !;
and when this young lady set her heart
on doing anything, it was very likely to
be done.
Besides, 1t was not simply her own in
clinatiOn she consulted in this choice.
Among her poor people-for poor people
were one of Miss Lacelles' oddities-were
two young English orphans, a brother and
sister, whom she had discovered one day
in a crowded, unwholesome city back
lane, where they were breathing distilled
dirt, and cheating their young, growing,
hungry muscles with a sort of refuse
which it was the highest strain of cour-
tcsy to call food. No wonder if their
poor cheeks became paler every day, and
that the boys strength was hardly suf1i-
cient to earn the pittance which just kept
the life in his sister and himself These
children were special favorites with Miss
Lascelles, whether because of their singu-
lar attachment to one another, or because
they were orphans with no ties of kindred
even as she herself was; and marking
their increasing delicacy, it occurred to
her that to take them out of the close heat
of a city summer into the free air and
life in which she herself had once thriven
would be no bad way of spending the
months usually allotted to the busy idle
ness of watering place existence.
So, with her two young proteges, Miss
Lascelles disappeared, to come to the sur
face again in the little town Of Stonebor-
ough The old gray house and the scat
terlng village appeared to have undergone
as little change as the eternal mountains
themselves that closed around.
is this place really in the world, I
wonder?" said Miss Lascelles to herself
with smile, surveying it. "It seems to
be out CfTime's way, at any rate. l don't
believe creature has been born CT died
in it since l was here could almost fan
cy myselfstill the slip ofa May-pole [ was
xx,.fh lc.r,a fO0 g.,
my face, and skin the color of the but
ter Mrs. Hutchins is working there.'
Miss Lascelles laughed again at the
and she could afford to laugh at it now,
for there was certainly no butter-color in
the glow on the clear check, and the full,
yet firm and free figure suggested any
thing but May-pole. Good Mrs. Hutch
ins, herself as little changed as all the
rest, would have been astonished to learn
that this handsome young woman was no
other than the sallow little heiress she
had shaken her head over so doubtfully
nine wears before. Such an idea never
occurred to her, either that it was that
particular heiress or any heiress al all;
for it was not precisely Saratoga ward
robe that Nina had brought to Stone
borough; and then, through some mis-
understanding at the outset Mrs. Hutch
ins had taken up the notion that her
dodgers were relatives. Miss Lascelles
did not correct an error which was so
very convenient to her purpose, since,
under strange name, she would escape
a good deal of the watching and gossip
which, in her own proper person, she
would have had to encouter. So Jimmy
and Kitty were privately drilled into
their new relationship by "Aunt Nina,"
who was known to the neighborhood as
Miss Neeny Pratt, and, taken at the valu-
alton of her cotton gowns and gypsy
straw, attracted no notice more burden
some than an admiring glance from some
Young farmer whom she passed in her
daily ramhles with the children. The
villagers, indeed, opined that Miss Neeny
was little fanciful-which was as their
way of calling her "odd''-but, the yer
dict once pronounced, troubled them
selves no more aboutsthe matter, for fan
cifulness, in all its varieties, is not as
high a misdemeanor in country as IN
city eyes.