The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1875-07-12
(From the Aldlne.)
A LITTLE FOOL.
By Kate Putnam 0sgood

by nate fulnam Osgood.
Florence Reed was little fool, said Julia
Willis. Her cousin it was who called her
so. You can judge between them if you
like it is story that will not take long in
telling.
Florence--or Florry, for nobody ever
dreamed of calling her anything else
Florry Reed was not in the least what one
would call beauty but then she had the
softest eyes and the sweetest lips in the
world. Something at least to that effect
Charley Dennis had been heard to declare,
and it is very much to be believed that he
spoke as one who should know on the sub
ject.
The two had been loving for quite a while
lovers in the bud as one may say, and ev-
erybody knows that the bud is the sweetest
part of. the whole bloom eenson. The
practical, common place stage of declara-
ton had not yet been reached; it was the
time of broken hints and secret hand-pres-
sures, of golden kisses and general felicity.
Florry walked on air, and forgot that it
was not her native element, till one I'M
lucky day the clouds melted under her feet,
and let her down to earth again with a rude
thump.
1t was the day of celebration given IN
Blackville to commemorate some event
perfectly uninteresting to the world at large,
but of the very last Importance in the eyes
of the Blaekvillains. For, though Black
vile was a little place, the inhabitants were
men and women very much like other peo-
pie. and measured the universe on the
Blackville yardstck after the orthodox and
proper fashion.
The festival beginning with an Grafton
ended with a picnic in grove just outside
the town, magnificent maple grove, whose
volet-scented solicitudes it was almost a
sin to profane with the clatter of hardware
and the popping of ginger-beer corks. Char
ley Dennis and Florry were there together
everywhere. But fortunately for Florry,
Miss Adelia Brent was there also.
The young lady was not Blackville born.
She came from much larger town, town
which would have turned up its nose very
high indeed at poor little Blackville, had it
| happened to be aware of its existence at all.
For which reason the Blackvillians natu.
rally looked with admiring awe upon it and
all that pertained to it, Miss Adelia, then,
being a visitor Just arrived among them,
| her debut was an event second only to the
event commemorated by the day. She was
not prettier than half their own girls there
present, but she was wholly unlike them IN
dress and style in word, she was some
thing new; and if novelty is one of the
greatest of all charms anywhere, it is not
the least so in small country town, where
a wholesome fear of his neighbor holds each
in a decent restraint. So all eyes were
| fastened on the stranger, when at II rather
late hour she made her appearance on the
ground, which in no-wise discomposed her.
She settled herself and her flounces, gave
final toss to the frizzy wilderness sur
rounding her little head, and, turning back
her fan parasol, looked around her with
| much the air with which traveller, strand
ed among savages, might observe their bar
| barous customs.
The first of the natives on whom her
chances CHANGED to rest were Charley and
Florry, and she vouchsafed them a pro-
longed examination, under which Florry' s
eyes fell and her color rose whereupon
Adelia, who had already mentally inven-
toried her as pretty, but deploraby without
style, regarded her anew, with amused
compassion, as girl who could actually
blush for being looked at.
Charley did not blush though. On the
contrary he returned the gaze with one
which might have abashed some girls. But
Miss Brent was not a young lady easily
abashed, and if the very evident admiration
in the handsome savage's black eyes at
| fected her IN any way, IL WAS certaihiy ho'
to embarrass or offend her. That was plain
from the manner in which she received his
advances later else the two would moi
have made so rapid an acquaintance, mol
have been missing when, by-and-by, stroll
through the grove was proposed, so that
Florry was obliged TO put up with the es'
cort Of her cousin, Fred Willis, neces'
sity considerably more agreeable to him
than her.
oh, what cloudy ending for day thai
had begun all sunshine2 Florry wonders
piteously, when, the festival at an end
they drove back through the evening to
gether, could this be the same Charley, who
on that very road, only few hours before
had said-well, it was not so much wha
he had said as the way, and especially thu
look, with which he had said it. Coult
this be the same, this distracted individual
who had to keep himself out of some rev
erie over-what? The charms of Mis-
r Adelia Brent2 Florry greatly feared it.
Yes, that was it. New brooms sweel
clean, and Miss Adelia's founces and friz
yes had swept Charley quite away from hi
moorings. In week she could turn hin
j. round her little finger in another week h
had so completely deserted the "softes
eyes and sweetest lips" as is that and man
Q like speech had been but empty air.
If Florry had been heroine, oh
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