Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1876-12-01
BLACK EYES AND GRAY.
A Thanksgiving sketch i'm Six Parts.
ny GEORGE CARY EGoLEsToN.

Miss Middleton was flushed and gave
other evidences Of mental agitation as she
passed through the parlor 10 the little clos
ct which was called by courtesy her room.
The plain fact Of the matter is that Miss
Middleton bad quarreled with her lover
five minutes before, and that gentleman
had dgnifiedly taken his leave.
do not mean 10 hint that the loss OF a
lover is n matter of any moment in a young
gentlewoman's personal history, or that one
lover more or less counts for much but
there were two facts which made the pres
ent case serious.
In the first place Miss Middleton was
poor, and now that her engagement was
pc peremptoriy ended, her prospects In life
we've really very alarming. She had not
always been poor, and she had but little
skill in any art that promised TO yield her
and her mother a support. They owned
great rice plantation on the coast, 1t is true,
but its dykes lad been broken, its flood
gates rotted away, its bitches filled up dur
ing tho war, and, until refitted at a great
cost, it was worse than worthless. Tax
bills had accumulated against 1t, and final
ly IL had been advertised for sale by the
sheriff. The little upholstered summer
cottage in which they were now living,
consisting chiefly of piazza, together with
its two acres of white sand, constituted the
whole sum of their possessions.
But her poverty and the barren prospect
before her were not in Miss Middleton's
mind at all. There was another and more
serious trouble in the case. Miss Middle
ton loved the quiet, patient man whom she
had just sent away with bowed head and
detected countenance, and, for some reason
W hich she was not psychologist enough 10
discover, sendingl him away had not in the
least cured her of her infatuatlon. The
worst of ii all was that she had been in a
passion, and stamped her pretty little foot
angrily, and said wicked things in her final
conversation with him, ardthe memory of
all her naughtiness, now that he was gone,
was sorely disquieting.
Not that she blamed herself in the least
for the rupture or quarrel that had accom-
panied it, by any means. Have not said
that she was wOmanI
No. 1t was all Mr.. Fred Breese's fault.
He ought to have known several things
that he could not possibly have found out
! in any way, and from his masculine stu
pidlty in not knowing these things the
| quarrel had come about, naturally and log
ically-feminine nature and feminine logic
being meant, of course.
Mr.. Breese was a native of New Eng
land. and Miss Middleton was South Car
| IL NJ ha1 oorund m fha a m "
of the Union, while Miss Middleton's only
brother had been buried in a suit Of gray.
When Mr.. Breese first came TO South Caro-
| lima, therefore, and became a winter board
er in Mrs. Middeton's house, prudence and
common courtesy forbade the introduce
tion of political topics in conversation and
when, little by little, Mr.. Breese became
| the intimate friend of the family, good
feeling prompted him and them to contin-
ne the silence; so that, while there was no
disslmulalion on either side, there had new
er been any discussion Of painful topics
between them. When Mr.. Breese return
ed TO pass a second winter in the family,
Miss Middleton had entirely ceased to
think of him as a yankee" at all and
when a few weeks later, his relation TO the
family changed from that of friend and
boarder to that of Miss Middlelon's accept
ed suitor, the two had pleasanter things
than political differences to talk about
and so they forgot to remember that there
was or ever had beon war between them.
On the morning of the equarrel Mr.. Breesf
had brought his New York newspaper will
him from the post Office, and in his absent
minded way read 1t as he walked.
This was the origin of all the trouble
aud If this story has any moral at all, 1t il
that one should never read a newspaper
except sitting in chair.
The newspaper in question contained
] among other things, the Presidents procla'