Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1876-03-08
THE NICK OF TIME.

Of all arrant firts, Alice Truesdell
bore the palm; and of all desperate
lovers, DR.. Fowle. Of course there
were other lovers at the young lady's
command, or she could not have f1irted;
but all her Irritation seemed to be di-
rected solely to the end of vexing this
single lover, whose grave, quiet, re-
pressed demeanor never let her exactly
know whether he were a lover or not,
and drove her first to some action that
almost betrayed her own feelings, and
then to one that should give the lie to
that betrayal, and set everything at
loose ends again.
You could hardly say why Miss
Truesdell had so many suitors. She
was not so very good-that is, she was
as good as most people, but not jot
better; she was not pretty-at least not
till she laughed and showed her white
teeth, and dimple deep as love ever
nestled in, or till she lifted her great
gray eyes and let you see how lustrous
lids. No, it could not have been her
beauty that was the charm; it was
voice, smile, face, figure, all together;
her personality, gay spirits, teasing
moods, sweet ways; her infinite variety
that attracted everybody coming within
its sphere. She sang a little, she danced
little, whatever she did she did well;
and SO, of course, she firted to perfec-
ton, and played off one lover against
another as prettily, the lockers on
might think, as a jugglertosses his
golden balls. But what did the lovers
think of it?
One Of them thought very poorly of
it, and was determined to bring Miss
Alice to close quarters in small time,
not in the least aware that all the others
had made exactly the same determina-
ton, and had found that to determine
was one thing and to do was another.
Man might propose, but Miss Alice
must dispose; and Miss Alice-as, in
deed, they each and all fondly hoped
was a match for any one Of them. If
she danced with Gregory, just as Greg
DRY felt encouraged and began to whis-
per the burning words, she dropped her
fan with glance at Mallory, who dart
ed to restore it, and was detained with
thanks and gay words and replies just
long enough to make it impossible for
Gregory TO take up the thread where
she had broken it. IF she walked with
DR.. Fowle, it was only after she had
allowed Mr.. Bolles to know that she
would be strolling in that direction,
where she was always SO pleased to
meet him when ne came up breathless-
ly, and found the doctor muttering an
athemas between his teeth-invocation
to Hsculapius. she called them.
But DR.. Fowle was not man you
could put off forever when he once
made up his mind to do thing, and SO
Miss Alice began to learn. And when
one night, as he babe her good-by,
Mallory and the rest being there, he
told her, in a grave but authoritative
undertone, quite unlike that of the
usual lover, that he wished to see her
next morning at IL o'clock, if she had
wanted to deny him she could not.
But, to tell the truth, she did not exact
ly want to. The young men had seem
ed SO inconsequent and stupid that
evening; Netty Armitage had seemed
80 frivolous; they had, each in turn,
come in and interrupted the Doctor
when he was telling her such fairy-like
tales of recent discoveries in science;
she had shrugged her shoulders at them
till the situation struck her ridiculous
~, and then she had laughed with the
merriest of them and pouted at the
Doctor. But now, as he was going, she
slipped her hand in his arm and saun-
tered down the lawn with him. The
night was night in June, when, if
ever, nights are perfect; the air was
laden with the breath of honeysuckie
and mock-orange; the winds that curl
ed around them, seemed to come from
distant lands of everlasting bloom, so
sweet they were; and the stars hung
taeir lamps through the clear dark.