Litchfield enquirer., 1873-06-19

blacksmith's and wagonwright's craft. supplied it with intermittent cinders, ,snaok.
 and din. The mail-wagon rattled up tha l stony way on it's neglected wheels, and daily raised dust like that which herald ed the approach of the two pedestrian slayers of Blue Beard, when at lengtl Sister Anne saw somebody coming-a: 4 dense and as welcome even to the dwell lers in she back street. It's roadside without one attractive grace to such a: had no association whereby to beautify
 It's ugiiness, bristled with lines of youns
 trees that had a stunted and homesicl look, as If unable to take kindly to tha
 soil; trees thit, growing none from sea
 son to season. and putting out year by
 year scantier crop of early dropping foli age. came to have curiously rakish anG
 blase appearance for saplings. People aft& much vain fostering, had ceased te
 feel any interest ill this beginning of al
 avenue, for the very mullein and golden
 rod had more adaptability in them, and
 throve with good grace by the fences, though doubtless the vicinage of the aris, tocratic pailings in the high street. would have been more to the taste of any well.
 conditioned herb. Even the rear of the
 church oyershadowed this street, and,
 having no windows on that side, 1t cer- talnly did give that sacred edifice the ap- pearance of coldly gathering mp its skirts
 and turning its back upon its humble neighbors.
 The high street, with it's cool and state +ly repose. had calm, Sabbath atmos- phere, while into the glare and dust of the
 back street was crowded all the chatter,
 sflr and confusion belonging to the un- hallowed six
 As Gillian Dane had written to Jack af. ter establishing herself in the back street. "How full of noises is this workaday
 worldI..
 To Jack she unburdened herself on Saturday evenings of the accumulated cares of the week; making of him. as he said, sumpter mule to bear the riches of her life. She thought that-especially the allusion to 'triches" when her life was all homespun-a style of fno writing of which she could not approve, and in her answer chided him.
 Don't practice on me, Jack" she wrote. eff you want to do the grandilo- quent-tO swaddle your little grains of sense up in mass of verbiage, like a poor mummy-go and report something for the newspapapsrs. That might pay you. But my poor little life! Why don't you accuse it of being jeunesse doree l have no use for sumpter mules, scarcely, indeed, for one poor little beast of burden. You should understand that my garments are all of frieze and my la bor all fretwork. I am settled now, indeed! You should see where and how, to quite appreciate the change. Every day, twice or thrice, pass the old Dane mansion where, in the heyday of its prosperity and pride, our ancestors dwelt as bravly as the best. The pros- perlty IS now gone, but, unhappily the pride remains, so the sight of manse and garden gives me an incongruous pang and pleasure. Now we two, last of the race, are Outcasts from our own; you, earning your salt in an attic with pen and brain, l teaching little dullards to strum Away with melancholy on parlor grands for hire and living, when I ana at home in the back street. Realize if you can, what that address implies to the small grandees heareabout! Do you know.z Jack. that these great creatures who are borne to the purple-village pur- pie hath more of of an imperial pile, too, than you may supposeLhave scarcely any idea that we on the back street live and suffer? They are remotely conscious that we exist and move, re- garding us, fancy as necessary evils ere ated for their benefit, to do do their need full drudgery. until some invention in me- chanics shall supersede us. Half the time do move, like an automaton, in the dim splendor of their houses, doing their work and feeling benumbed, or blank like slate withball the sums rubbed out; the olher half I am in my little home in the back street, where the flies buzz, the light glares, the dust flies, and I am, like Hamlet. too much f the sum- can't bring myself down to the enviable state of a settled low content though if l have content at all it must needs be low"
 To which Jack replies, with his genial humor:
 My dear little Gillian, what sort of content think you the lark has, who builds his nest the lowliest among the meadow grasses, and yet of all birds sings his song highest m the heavens? From his carol have always judged or lark to he the most joyous hearted of wild fowl. Where as your eagle and vulture, nesting on dizzy nights, utter unpleasant screeches and are birds of prey"
 Gillian, reading, smiled and sighed.
 Dear old Jack!' she thought. ''What pretty, harmless poetry his thoughts al- ways are All the same, I hate home spun and back streets, and low delights are no more for me than-at present-sim- mortal joys are, however l may have to endure!"
 Much discussion had prolonged Miss Danes admittance to the back street cot tage in which she and her one box had at l~~,- \, ez .G2 ll.at- -e boaRders" not being popular one in that rural town. There were various ehjec- tions, chiefly an instructive longing to shut out strangers from the sanctity of home, fear to disturb by the introduc- current of their lowly but loving lives. against her that Miss Dane had seen bet so much attention and the like, and in up" with much, and to learn to wait on themselves. Her quiet, aristocratic face was against her, except for childlike, asking look in the violet eyes, aud a pe- culiar sweetness in the rare smile, which finally won the day.
 It was little eramped house, full of cloaet-like rooms, and all sorts of make shifts for needed space. The best and biggest closet-spare room, eise-was as- signed to her: and when Gillian, survey ing her premises, secretly made fun of her condition-t6 laugh or to cry belng her alternatives-and remembered how the punishment of her baby days used to to be Aunt Eugenia's threat to shut her up in the closet, threat which now sa- vored of the prophetic, as having at last
 s'eome true," she little knew that she was guilty of the coldest ingratitude.
 For, havlng accepted her as an inmate, Mrs. Patlett and Charity had taken her into their hearts also, and petted her in secret, and were proud of her openly in