The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1873-07-23

of loving any. one, not to permi
any one to enter her hearts sanctu
arv-for once being there, M.
DEAR she lad said, it is wors'
than thinning yourself of nettle
to get them out again, so yon see
lis much the safer course to hole
them all a long way off, and laugh
at their folly
Pretty Dolly had sighed grieV
ously at this unwomanly advice
and twining her plump, brown
arms about Mrs. Bowles' neck from
behind her chair-back, and laid hel
head against the lavender ribbons
out of very pity for this broken
hearted woman, who told not one
word of truth when she spoke like
this.
BAD, cold heart said the win
ming Dolly, squeezing little with
the plump arms. "A bad, colo
heart, never to have loved any one
| in its life.
Suddenly Aunt Jane thin hands
were thrown up, catching Dorothy
around the shiny head, and she was
drawn down on the deceitful breast
in which beat that hypocritica
heart. claiming to look on all the
world with stolid Indifference; and
Aunt James blue eyes were wet as
garden pansies after June rain
and she blushed furiously.
Not so bad as that, dear; [ have
known what it is to love in my
time, and I have also felt the sor.
row such madness brought to me.
I would save you, Dorothy, from
such a life as mine has been-and
is. That is why I say keep them
all out of your heart. See how
happy you are now. Remain SO,
my dear; stay just as you are
Dorothy's slender fingers Autter-
ed in and out of the purple ribbons
like busy little birds, setting this
knot straight and relying that, with
a deadly palor in her cheeks and
very sad eyes for Dorothy.
'T~am afraid, Aunty Bowles, that
in taking away the sorrows of life,
you would find that some of the
sweets had also departed Dorothy
said directly, making an end of the
cap-strings, after ingeniously dis
posing of them in love-knots.
You know what the poet has
said:
It's better to have loved and lost,
Than never to have loved at all.''
(Which sounds extremely we'll in
a gilt-edged book, dear, along with
a lot of such rubbish; but another
kind of thing in an everyday life
of tea-drinking and cotton gowns
said practical Mrs. Bowles, wincing
a little, after the afectation Of hav-
ing poked a knitting-needle against
her thumb, bnt in reality thinking
of a dead and gone, almost forgot
ten age, when with just such an in
quiring, eager soul as Dorothy's,
she had solved the sweet mystery,
and learned all the sharp agony
there is in loving and losing.
At the age of eighteen Dorothy
Lyme stood jnst as much in need
of sober counsel and staid wisdom
as many another young woman,
but Dorothy had a way of thinking
her own thoughts and forming
ideas which were esteemed uueer
bv some. Even good Mrs. BowIes,
the only mother Dorothy had ever
known, called her strange, "a regu-
lar hereto, unlike most girls, who
are addle-headed until twenty, but
generally settle down after that as
solemn and proper as possible
There was a womanlv quiet and
a self.possession about Dorothy
which no one conld think of calling
so1emnity. Dorothv's-sonl was all
Sunshine, but rather the mellow,
CLEAN, falling warmly,
steadily on the pure white tiles of
a church floor. stealing color from
the richly Illuminated windows
above, than the dazzling beam
slanting over a velvetv meadow
all gold and butterflies, one mo-
ment, then shadows and sighing
winds.
Dorothy, left very early by her
father, her last surviving parent. to
the care and trnst of his friend,
Martin Lorford, had been sent away
to school among other girls; a very
shy and very plain child, with a
startled look in the deep black eyes,
and s6briety painful to contem-
plate in her age.
Yet Dorothy was not without a
will Of her own. which she asserted
one dav, after stay of six years,
scarcely Interrupted by the usual
visits and holidays, by coming
home,' as she called it, to the grim
old house, deeply seated in fir trees
and quaint shrubbery, occupied
only by few servants, the house-
keeper, and the owner. a. middle
aged man with a world-wearv look
and iron-gray hair, 40 beautiful as
to astonish even those who held
out that there was a promise of