The Lake County star. [volume] (Chase, Mich.) 1873-current, 1874-08-27
might be for years, and it might be for

which they had long been omitted. There
were new, rich people in Marathon who
knew not Joseph, who made much of
Miss Drexel, and little of the Misses
Sparsley, because Mr. Jeflreys had intro
duced her, and because he found her tai
ent, and wished to enrich their .fetes with
her musical skill. The Sparsleys were
not prepared for any such awkward situ-
alton, though they could have borne it
had it not come about by Mr.. Jeffrey
influence. Why had he not lent himself
to their establishment i'm society as well
as to that of this stranger? Had she
already bewitched him? Perish the
thought!
"Your parlor looks like an oasis
among the sands of Sahara" Miss
Katherine overheard him to say to her,
as he left it one day. 81 believe you've
appropriated every atom of sunshine
there is in the house. | always thought
my own room was charming till you
came and disenchanted it" And indeed
Miss Drexel's parlor deserved his en-
comiums. 1t overlooked the country
through four broad windows, whose
embrasures were filled with flower
ing plants here and there
were little treasures saved from the
wreck of once luxurious home; a
writing-stand of English lacquer-work,
an antique chair, few family portraits
of ladies in satin and jewelry, and a
grandfather by Copley; an ormolu clock,
with a chime like distant cathedral
bell; a Dresden china vase and POM
peian lamp, which illuminated the ordi-
nary clearinghouse furniture, and
lent the room an air of quaint pic
turesqueness. The sun heaped great
bars of gold on the dingy carpet, which
made amends for its depressed express
ion, and touched and intensified every
bit of color with its magic, till the place
made one dream of painted windows and
the flash of tropical wings, while the
flowers in the Dresden vase palpitated
like gems, and the old figures of the lac
quer work seemed starting out from their
dull background, ald the geraniums and
fuchias burned like torches in the win
dow-ledges. Miss Huldah suggested that
after this, palpably limiting an injury
to the carpet. "ToO much sunshine is
bad for eyes and carpets, Miss Drexel,"
she said. She did not care a farthing for
Miss Drexels eyes; she was merely
afraid of the effect on Mr.. Jeffrcys The
room was getting too pleasant to him. 1t
was aggravating enough, no doubt, to
hear NJ. Jeffreys and Miss Drexel chat
ting on The stairway going up and down,
and in the hall; TO know that the con-
versation sometimes dropped into such
an under-tone that was impossible for
the best regulated ears to catch the i'm
port; to find that when they went out in
different directions they almost invaria-
bly, returned together, as if under the
magnetism hardly understood by their
landladies. 1t was surely little annoy-
ing that Mr.. Jeflreys should spend even
ing after evening in Miss Drexel's parlor
at the whist table, especially as he had
excused himself from the game on pre-
vious winter evenings, on the score of
Ignorance.
ooh, thought you didn't play whist"
essayed Miss Huldah, with feigned sur
prise.
"I've been learning" he answered,
"with the help of Miss Drexel, Pole,
and Cavendish. Pm a partner fit for Il
queen"
"Then come down and play with
Katherine and me sometimes. And,
perhaps Miss Drexel will favor us, too.
Pm about tired of dominocs."
They consented, to be sure. But the
scheme did not work. Miss Huldah be-
came so entangled in the branches of the
family tree that she trumped her part
ners trick. Katherine was Mr.. Jefireys
partner, but he saw nobody but Miss
Drexel. Miss Huldah began to doubt.if
he understood that grandpapa had kept
his carriage and span had entertained a
and mad built and lived i'm
Pimlico Place, at the court end of Mar
athOn, where she and Katherine had
first seen the day. She forgot that all
which fe was already weary, and which
affected him not nearly so much as if
they had been born in a hOvel and reared
on mud pies.
In spite Of her plain face and common
place style, Miss Drexel was working mis-
chief for Katherine, Huldah feared; and |
she took her work up to that young repro |
bates room one afternoon, and read her |
an indirect lecture on the propriety of
seeing gentlemen alone in boarding
house, especially if you were young
woman with no family behind you, in a
strange place, where folks were ready to
talk. In fact, before the summer was
half through Miss Huldah was at hes
wits end. She declined to give up the |
cherished scheme of half dozen sum-
mers for this upstart. Why should he
not farcy Katherine as well as Miss
Drexel? IL is true, nothing had been
rom Katherine which she had
any right to expect. The = # of concert
tickets continued she 81; had an occa-
more frequent-seat
behind Mr.. JefIreys nag when he brought
in basket o. early iruit Katherine's
hands received it. But fruit and flowers
found their way almost every day into
Miss Drexels rooms; she had seat in
his carriage whenever he conld leave |
business for pleasure, and Huldah did |
not know that Katherinc's drives and |
pleasures had been increased at her rivals |
suggestion, ror would she have thanked |
her for her trouble. All this, however, |
was not g. all to Huldah's mind. She |
saw thai opportunity would make Mr.. |
Jeffreys the lover of Miss Drexel, unless |
should happen to interrupt
their too easy intercourse. Mr.. JefIreys |
was indolent enough in his social nature
she had never known him to go out of
his way to cultivate the company of
young ladies, and she had argued that
once in the house and under his eye a
young girl could make easy prey of him
indeed, she had built her hopes for Kath-
crime on this popularity of his, and she
arrived mt the onc.usion that she had
been fool to admit Miss Drexel TO this |
She ought to have known
that plain woman was more dangerous
than pretty one, inasmuch as a man
Is not on guard against her, while the
pretty woman is so well pleased with her.
,elf that she taxes little or no pains to
please another. Huldah straightway de-
,ided to get Miss Drexel out of the house
Is soon as possible. OF course, this could
not be accomplished in direct way /;
al n.ooI .,xI