Connecticut western news., 1874-01-09
HORRID MISS LEIGH.

HORRID MISS LEIGH.
 Tom Luttrell, aged twenty-four, was thoroughly good fellow, good-tem- pered, good looking, and heir to good property, but he had one sorrow-he was engaged to girl he had never seen.
 Some ten years before dispute had arisen about a certain Hillingdon estate, in Leicestershire, to which MT. Luttrell Toms father-and a certain Carn- worth Leigh both laid claim. Litiga- ton seemed inevitable, and the legal fraternity began to prick up it's ears, when one morning MT. Luttrell received the following note:
 "DEAR LUTTRELL You and l have been good friends all our lives, and there is no man living for whom have a greater esteem than for yourself. Cannot we, then, settle this wretched business without troubling these infer nal lawyers My uncle, Haughton Leigh, had a suit that lasted him twenty years and killed him in the end. Now, listen to me my daughter Nellie will have all I've got at my death, except Garfield, which goes to Jacks boy. Why shouldn't she marry your boy Tom? Let the property alone for the next ten years then Nellie will be eighteen and Tom four-and- twenty-if they like to maray then, we'll and good if either should decline to carry out the arrangement, let the property go to the other.
 "This is a rough idea of my plan, which Jackson, your lawyer, could soon put into shape. What do you say?
 "Yours, etc.,
 CARNwoRTH LEIGH. Garfield"
 To this proposition MT. Luttrell agreed, and Tom found himself an en- gagged man at fourteen. Soon after this MT. Leigh was obliged to leave England for his health and for many years he resided entirely on the Continent. So it happened that Tom and his future bride had never met.
 About month before the time fixed for h1s decision Tom betook himself to a small inn in the village of Settle bourn, near Stockford, nominally to fish, but in reality to escape from his fathers arguments, and to get little time to himself for quiet reflection, while he solaced his wretched soul with tobacco.
 One day as he lay lazily smoking by the silver Beck, something fell from a high bank above him and dropped lightly on the water, while girls voice exclaimed:
 "Oh, my gracious, my hat p
 Tom looked, and saw very neat little hat floating, boat-ike, down the stream.
 "Bother the young woman," he grumbled, "I suppose, now, she'll ex- pect me to fetch it!'
 As he rose he looked up to the spot from which the voice had proceeded, and saw girl whose beauty surprised him. She stood bareheaded on the bank, gazing with look of comic dis may after the fast receding hat, and Tom had an opportunity of examining critically, from the little head. with it's crisp, brown hair, disordered by the wind, to the slim ankles which her posi- tion revealed as she stood above him.
 Running some yards down the bank, he stepped out upon an old willow, which protruded over the stream, and waited in the hope that the current would bring the hat within his reach. He was not disappointed, and in few minutes more he was again on terra frn1a with h1s prize.
 "I must make friends with this young person." he thought, as he care fully dried the dripping feather with his handkerchief.
 The fair stranger had watched his efforts from her elevated post, and smiled sweetly on him as he climbed the bank with his recovered treasure. She had evidently been sketching, for her materials were scattered in pictur- esque confusion around her.
 "I hope it's not much damaged" said Tom, as he looked rather ruefully at the result of his manipulations. "I'm afraid the feathers in a bad way"
 "Oh, it doesn't matter in the least, thanks. How kind of you to take so much trouble. But for you must have walked home bnre-headed."
 " I wouldn't put it on just yet, y Tom said. Let it lie in the sun little and dry, while you go on with your work"
 "But suppose it starts off again, when there's no one to recover it for me ?" she suggested.
 "Let me guard it, then, and you can work in peace. You are sketching, I see may I look p
 ooh, yes but it's miserable fail ure, I'm afraid" she said, laughing, as she handed it to him. Tom examined it, and, being @ bit of an amateur him. self, proceeded to criticise, and, finally, to instruct. He found the girl very charming she seemed so delightfully."- free from all conventionality, without at all resembling his bctc noir, the "fast girl"
 They grew quite confidential as the lesson proceeded, and were amazed when, on consulting their watches, they discovered that it was half-past six.
 "I must fy," she said, Cor I shall be late for dinner, and Sir John can't stand that"
 Have you far to go ?'' asked Tom, craftily.
 "About mile. I'm staying at New lands. Good-by. No, I can carry them, thanks I couldn't think of troubling you any more. "Goodsy," and she was off
 Tom went to his room, thinking great deal about his new friend, won- dering where the charms lay which, even more than her beauty, had fas- cinated him. Perhaps it's her dress," he thought; "she dresses better than any woman ever saw and then her boots p Here he lit cigar and fell into dream about the said boots and about the little white hand which had