Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1874-07-23

|
| Why had he not lent himself to their es
Establishment in society as well as to that
| of this stranger? Had she already be
witched him? Perish the thought!
! :" Your parlOr looks like an oasis among
the sands of Sahara" Miss Katherine
| overheard him say to her, as he left il
one day Il believe you've appropriated
every atom of sunshine there is in the
house. I ALWAYS thought my own room
was charming till YOU came and Olsen
chanted it." And indeed Miss Drexel's
raTJor deserved his encOmlums. It over
| looked the country through Tour broad
| windows whose embrasures were filled
with Towering plants; mere and there
| were little treasures saved from the
wreck of a once luxurious home; a writ
| ing-stand of English lacquer work, an
antique chair, few family portraits OF
| ladies in satin and jewels, and grand
father by Copley; an ormolu clock
! with a chime like a distant catbe
dral bell; Dresden china vase
and a Pompeian lamp, which iIlu-
minated the ordinary clearinghouse fur.
| nituring, and lent the room an air OF
quaint picturesqueness. The sun heaped
! great bars of gold on the dingy carpet
which made amends for its depressed ex
preston, and touched and intensified
| every bit Of color with its magic, till the
place made one dream Of painted win
| dows and the flash OF tropical wings
while the flowers in the Dresden
palpitated like gems, and the old figures
| of the lacuuer-wOrk seemed starting out
| from their dull background, and the
| geraniums and fuchsias burned like
| IL, ,,1r,yr lal
dab suggested that she should shut out
some of the glare after this, palpablv
limiting an injury to the carpet. ''ToO
much sunshine is bad for eyes and car
pets. Miss DrexeI,n she said She did
not care farthing for Miss DrexeTs eyes
she was merely afraid Of the effect on
Mr.. Jeffreys'. The room was getting too
pleasant to him. 1t was aggravating
enough, no doubt, to hear Mr. JeffrevS
and Miss Drexel chatting on the stairway
going up and down, and in the hall. to
know that the conversation sometimes
dropped into such an undertOne that it
was impossible for the best-regulated ear
to catch the import; to find that when
they went out in different directions they
almost invariably returned together as
if under the influence of some magnetism
hardly understood by their landladies.
1t was surely little ANNOYING
that Mr. Jeffreys should spend evening
after eveningin Miss DreXePs parlor at the
whist-tabIe, especially as he had excused
himself from the game on previous win
ter evenings on the score of ignorance.
"Oh, | thought you didn't play whist y
| essayed Miss Huldah, with feigned sur
prise.
1--WE been learning" he answered,
''with the help of Miss DreXel, Pole and
Cavendish. I'm a partner fit for Il
queen"
"Then come down and play with Kath-
crime and me sometimes. And perhaps
Miss Drexel will favor us, too? I'm
about tired of dominOes."
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 Katharine was Mr.. Jeffreys'
partner, but he saw nobody but Miss
| DrcXel Miss Huldah began TO doubt if
! he understood that grandpa had kept his
carriage and span, had entertained Com
modore and had built and lived in PIN
| lico place, at the court end of Marathon,
where she and Katharine had first seen
the day She forgot that all this was an
| old story to Mr.. J etfreys, of which he was
already weary, and which affected him
not nearly so much as if they had been
| born in howell 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 rep
robate's room one afternoon and read
\ L. I IL
propriety of seeing gentlemen alone
in clearinghouse, especially if you
are a 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 her wits end. She
declined to give up the cherished scheme
of half a dozen summers for this up
start. Why should he not fancy Kathe-
rine as well as Miss DreXel? 1t is true,
nothing had been withheld from Kathe-
rine which she had any right to expect.
| The gift of concert tickets continued
| she still had an ccasiOnal-indeed, a
more freqUent-seat behind Mr.. Jetfreys'
nag; when he brought in basket of
early fruit, katherine's hands received
it. But fruit and flowers found their
y
room; she had a seat in his carriage
whenever he could leave business for
pleasure; and Huldah did not know that
Katherines drives and pleasures had
been increased at her rivals suggestion,
nor would she have thanked her for her
trouble. All this, however, was not at
all to Huldah's mind She saw that OPP
pOrtunity would make Mr. Jeffreys the
Of h
should happen to interrupt their too easy
intercourse. Mr.. Jeffreys was indolent
enough in his social nature; she had
never known him to go out of his way to
cultivate the 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 Katherine on this popularity
Of his, and she arrived at the conclusion
that she had been fool to admit Miss
DreXel to this opportunity. She ought
to have known that plain woman
was more dangerous than a pref
ty one, inaSmuch as man is
not on guard against her, while the
pretty woman is so well pleased with her
self that she takes little or no pains to
please another. Huldah straightWay de
cided to get Miss Drexel out of the house
as soon as possible. Of course this could
not be accomplished in a direct way; she
could not tell Miss Drexel up and down
that her room was better than her COM
pany, and the only other alternative was
to resort to little filings of temper and
pin-pricks of discomfort, which, if Miss
DreXel was anything of an epicurean,
would render her boarding-place highly
distasteful.