Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1874-04-10
RosAM0ND AND HER LOVERS
BY HARRIET PRESCOTT spoFFoRD.

BY HARRIET PRESCOTT sPoFFORD.
] It was dreadful day and night We pass
| ed My husband had been on the spot
Rosamond was helpless in Mysteries, and
although the kilograms came every hour
| there were no good words in them and
Rosamond only came out of one attack
long enough to ask and hear that there
| was nothing certain yet before she went
off into another and uf course neither
| her sister Emma, nor the house-maids ,nol
| / could at first spare time for hope OF fear,
| so busy were we about the poor child who
to our Impractical senses, looked in as
| much danger Of death as anybody.
| Rosamond and Emma were not relations
of ours, but their parents had been our
| dear friends, and when they died we had
| begged that tae children might come to
| lis, and SO they had spent all their long
vacations under our roof, and Buttons,
our page, had waited OH them as a little
| heather would wait on his idols il he could,
and his face turned as pink as though he
| were boiled, and all the hair on his round
head bristled with pleasure, whenever they
looked at him or spoke to him. Poor But
ons he was a standing joke among us,
md we never could think of him, even
When the school days were over and the
girls had come home permanently, and
there was no longer any Buttons in the
honse, without a laugh.
OF course we had no authority over the
girls but that of affection, but it was a
pleasure to have the dear things around us
only when Rosamond, the brighter and
prettier of the two, began to have her
lovers, We saw that it was q little while we
should be able to keep her, and congratu-
lated ourselves that at any rate we should
still retain Emma. a 1
Rosamond was nothing like a beauty,
and yet she had all the effect of one she
had that rich skin which any color becomes,
and her eyes were always beaming, and her
unruly hair was always turning up in lit
tie curls, and she had the sweetest mouth
in the world, and the.prettiest pearls in it j;
'nly her nose was anything but what she
WohtC0 w. ouppOoC DIG WOulu idtC kCilC
To extremes, and have had as keen an
aquiline las any hawk-beaked Roman lady's,
could she have had her way, or, as it was
she had to make the best.of what she called a
pug. AS for Emma, she was simply Rosa
mond's shadow-not quite so tall, not quite
so plump,not quite so fresh colored or cur
ly-headed, and not by any means SO charm
ing. For Rosamond, with her vivacity.
her quick temper and her good heart, her
obliging ways, her confiiing air, and her
singing, certainly was charming, and after
she came home the number of boquets, in
compliment of her singing, that were
thrown into our ground-foor windows by
her feeble-m minded young lovers, with cour-
age overwhelmed by infatuation, kept us
supplied with flowers.
Well, the truth is that Rosamond was q,
1rt. Emma wasn't: she never had the
chance, as Rosamond told her once, in an
swer to the accusation, instantly kissing
her and crying over her. and begging all
the pardons that there we're, and from that
moment making over to Emma, SO formal
ly as to render it laughable to us, who saw
it al, the best beau she had-s proceeding
that the beau took in such dudgeon that
he ceased to come to the house at all. But,
as | was saying, RosamoEd was q pro-
! nounced flirt she had hirted with the Sc
rious head-master at school, and with the
| frivolous music master, and had given the
dancing master to understand that size be-
lieved him one of the old noblesse in dis
guise she had tried her arts on the mir
lister and when the doctor was called to
her diptheria, Of course, she tried them on
him. Not that they were arts at all--they
were part of the child's nature; it was a
necessity with her that every one should
care for her. If they didn't love her spon-
taneously, she had to vile them into it,
and generally they did it spontaneously
enough.
It was not with equanimity that Emma
viewed these successes Of Rosamond s.
II wonder,n she would bemoan herself
''why everybody loves Rosamond and no
body loves me -
'sMy DEAR exclaimed, doesn't Rosa
mond love you ? doesn't your cousin Mau
rice don't I Z"
"Oh, I dare say" Emma moaned again
ssbut I want 10 be the first to somebody
You love cousin Maurice better than me
and heloves you better me, and Rosam ont
is all ready to love anybody better thar
me, Oh, bother that sort Of love" criet
Emma, between laughing and crying. ''It
would be SO delightful" said the poor lit
j tie simpleton, to be loved the way people
are when they are engaged y ass5
| While Emma held forth in this Way. DIR