Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1875-09-09
ALL FOR A SONG.



IT had been hard day for Lettie Nor
ris-a hard, cherries day. All the long
warm forenoon she had been standing at
the irOning-table in the little, low, dingy
kitchen, until her head ached and her
back ached, and the round, plump face,
which was always rosy, was ten times
roster than ever. And | doubt if you
would have even called her pretty could
you have peeped through the morning
glory vines that Lettie's own little brown
hands had planted and trained over the
window, that she might have at least one
thing to look at while at work that seemed
fresh and glad-one thing she might call
her own to lOve-tOr Lettie was an orphan.
She had a pleasant home and a kind
father and loving mother once, but for
three years the daisies had blossomed on
their graves in far-away city of the dead,
where LettIe had not even the satisfaction
Of weeping over them. She tried to be
thankful that she had home, or at least
place to stay, with her widowed aunt,
but, though Mrs. st. John was naturally a
Arabella, was the lady of the house and
its supreme ruler, and her mother was too
weak and indolent to look into matters, or
know or care how things were managed,
so she was blind to the looks Of hatred
and deaf to the tones of insulting superb
GRITTY which that young lady bestowed
upon poor little Lettie
No wonder, then, that Lettie's heart
often ached with sad feeling of loneli-
ness, and a longing for somebody to love
her and say kind words to her. She was
almost seventeen, but she had never been
into society since she came to live with her
aunt, and the few young gentlemen who
visited Arabella never saw the little
kitchen-maid, of course. Only once Clar-
ence Lee, the bankers son, and himself a
young lawyer of high repute, heard her
singing low, sweet song, and could not
not help asking who had such a sweet
voice. Arabella felt more indignant than
she cared to show at this outburst Of en-
thusiasm from lips that had never Uttered
q single praise for her own singing, though
she invariably sent her voice up to the
highest notch she was capable of reach
ing and trilled her most intricate passages
solely for his benefit. All the satisfaction
he derived from this voluntary entertain
ment, however, was the inward consola-
ton he gave himself by thinking he was
glad he wasn't that piano to undergo such
a humping and whacking and pounding
as that received from the jeweled hands
Of Arabella St. John. SO, when he
spoke SO warmly of the voice he heard
from the kitchen and seemed all absorbed
in listening to it, she was so enraged as to
forget the sweet expression she assumed
for her gentlemen callers, and this one in
particular, and allowed an ugly frown to
deepen the wrinkle between her brows
that she had spent a whole quarter of an
hour trying to smooth out that very even
ing.
" It's nobody but our kitchen-girl," she
said. 9 Probably practicing one of her
Irish songs"
But the quick ear of Clarence knew il
was no Irish song' that so entranced
him, sor even as they spoke the clear
sweet notes of Annie Laurie" 1oated up
from yhe dingy room below Clarence
noticed the frown on Arabella's brow and
her evident air of dissatisfaction anG was
rather disenchanted with the fair lady,
whom he had heretofore thought was SO
angelic in disposition and amiable in man
ner, so well had she played her game, fol
she had boosted she meant to win Clarence
Lee and live on his fathers property.
As the song still continued and Clarence
seemed to: have one ear for that and
one Tor her, she asked to be excused for s
moment and left the room As she wen
OUT, the door, which she thought she
i"'cheo, swung open again and Clarence
became an involuntary, but much inter
eS'eo, listener to a choice bit of converse