The Somerset press. [volume] (Somerset, Ohio) 1873-1977, 1876-06-09

es IS my unqualified answer;
.nd once only. and that was not on
the head OF an old woman-if years are
to ae cour ted by the parish register.
Nss. Chi.iers vas cid enough and odd
enough ln all other respects. though she
had n reached her fortieth birthday
when saw her, and she had mass OF
hair as white az a snowdrift.
Dear me! that was remarkably young
for grav hair quoth Mrs. ChapPell,
putting aside the paper box.
She was not an Albino surely?
oh, no; she was simply a remor-efnl
woman
Then | suppose her hair turned gray
suddenly?' aud Mrs. ChaPPell's speaking
eyes, were like two notes of interroga
ton.
Il loosened my waterproof and settled
myself in the chair as | answered those
eyes
No; Miss Childers, who was Of a
poetic turn, told me herself, IN the words
o. Byron:
% My hair is gray but not with years
Nor grew it white
In single night.
AS mems has grown from sudden fear
And now, Mrs. Campbell, having raised
the ghost Of Mother Eve, suppose
had better set curiosity at rest if you are
to nave any rest tonight
She laughed, and resumed, her as
sisian. sje!ng little nearer to listen al
so, il being past their busy hours.
You must know that all the eighteen
years ! have given TO nursing invalids
have not been spent in the smoke OF
London. So long as Oliver Marbury
was above ground shifted from place
to place. lest he should, by any strange
mischance, trouble me again"
"Nine or ten years back | was located
in a cathedral city, which I need not
identity beyond remarking the great
height Of its spire and its numerous
bridges conseq uent on open water courses
running like rivers through the main
streets.
In the Cathedral Close stood one
house, so isolated in its mysterious neg
lect and CRIME, | could never pass 1t
without shiver, even in midsummer,
or without a wonder what crime or
chancery suit could have cast such a
shadow over that substantial, rOomy
dwelling. Venetian blinds. which had
toned down from bright green to a
lIrk olive shut rut alike sunshine and
conriu-itv, except where the laths had
.,rr-"I 80 he1vv for the rotten web, and
rr..a.as 'et in accidental streaks Of
a.s o. .as3 3r-, ..i milhewey secrets
ocIu -such light, Mrs. Chapp-ll
a. conld force Its way through panes OF
gla-s which were never cleaned unless
the clouds (good scavengers that they
ara) com pa-sionately washed the dirt of
them. The window frames were of that
nonde4cript gray which paint assumes
in its very old age; and from the sell
dom-opened door the bliStered paint had
peeled in patches The bell wire was
broken. the knocker rusty. No friend
hawker, no mendicant ever raised it to
send an echo through the silent house,
even the strange tramp. who glanced up
at the windows passeAsn and sought nc
aims, supposing the place deserted.
1T looked desolate enough; nearly
twenty years' disuse and dust were upon
it; but prior to its abandonment to moth
and mildew it had been bright as any in
the Close; fitted throughout with taste
and elegance; and the magnets of the
city and their families had visited with
Mrs. Childers and her dark-eyed daugh
ter, who was somehow regarded as q
young lady of great intellectual promise
and undoubted beauty.
All this | gathered from hearsay
When / saw Miss Childers frst-it was
in book sellers shop-she was spare
woman, with STOPPING shoulders, sharp
aquiline nose, thin, compressed lips evel
on the work, restless gray eyes, deeply
sunken under brows that overhunR like
cottage caves, heavy with wintry SHOWS
and her banded hair was white as tha
same snow upon the cottage thatch.
saw as she took ont her purse, that hel
attenuated hands had been we'll shaped
but it occurred 70 me the long fiber
nail, might well have been trimmed
more frequently.
Then her dress was most incGngruous
Il was Of good mateTial-or had been
but its fashion was antiqnated, its cOlor'
lost, and the garments wece hUddied OF
with no regard 20 season or suitability
Such being, You may be sure, was a,
we'll known as the cathedral l-porch-
which she never entered. She was citec
rs an example Of eccentric genius, ant
help up as a warning to other poetica
misses who aspired to early authorship
for she had given books to the worlo
(her small world and still solaced he
solitary hours with composition and cor
respondence.
Yet, though she had no guests, sh
had correspondents-people she hat
known in her girlhood, or among tn
country families where her books ha'
found entrance first; and one of thes
assured me that her letters were full Q
kindliness, good feeling. shrewd commo
sense, and some critical acumen. Yet n
postman's rap ever resounded on he
knocker; her letters we're passed unde
the door in silence and lay there unit
picked up by Mrs Barford, the old char
woman, who once week waited upo
her, and did what little cleaning was re
quired or permitted in the one roof
where Miss Childers slept and sat an
read and wrote, kept her food and cook
ed il, kept her Goals for the weeks fir,
where ashes and cinders accumulated o
the hearth, to be removed hebdominall
by the hands of the only h1man bein
she trusted, or thought she could trus
That same Mrs. Barford had cut he
IL, k0N