Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1876-02-17
only necessary to plead the ignorance
which had caused il,


only necessary TO plead the ignorance
which had caused il.
IL really beg your pardon, Ruth, he be-
gan. IF / had known word OF this,
l.
'But you ought to have known of it,
she exclaimed. and il was at this point
that she stamped her foot.
How could P'' he pleaded.
Don't let US quarrel, replied the gen.
tie woman. land that we may not we had
better say good bye"
"But my dear Miss Middleton
"There, it's of no use to argue the
point My mind is quite made up. we
ought 10 have known from the first that
we should never go on together. We
shall never be able to agree, and 1t is bet
ter that all should end now between US.
Aud with that the young woman swept
past him and into the house.
Fred Bresse was a resolute fellow, and
before he had fairly Quilted the place he
had determined his case for the future.
Hiring horse at a stable in the village,
he rode away toward the railway, and was
heard of no more in the neighborhood.
Ruth is right" he wrote to his sister
the next night. my cold gray-eyed ma
ture would never fully comprehend her
back-eyed one, and it is better that we
should part now; but it is a sore sorrow,
and if | had no great purpose in life, l
fear it would work me i'll. As it is, shall
be too much absorbed in my one LIES
work to grieye overmuch.'
Miss Middleton saw that she must bestr
l. al TO lyon, bo wolf from the door
In sending away her lover she sent away
her mothers only bcarder, and it became
her TO do something by way of compensa-
ton. But what could she do? She might
teach, perhaps, if there were any pupils
to be had able to pay for their tuition;
but there were none, and the young wo-
nan determined, as all fairly educated
young women do in such cases, to write
tor the magazines. Nothing is so easy as
to write, aud Miss Middleton found the la
Dor of production so very light that. by
the most moderate calculations she could
make, she thought herself certain to earn
more money every month than she dared
mention even to her mother.
She hoped that the publishers would
pay only in checks, lest the abundance of
money in the house should tempt bur-
glars. She wrote her manuscript upon
beautiful paper Covering both sides, of
with delicateIy shapened pens
and tied it together at the top with jaun-
ties, blue ribbon, imaginable. Then she
sent it to an editor, who, after keeping it
a fortnight, returned it with very polite
letter indeed, explaining the crowded
state of his columns, and suggested the
probability that some other editor, less alb
solutely overwhelmed with manuscripts
than he. would eagerly accept it.
The next editor was a trihe less elabor-
ate in his epistolary style, but polite and
nevertheless. The next re-
turned the manuscript with printed cir
cular, very neat and extremely rich in
courteous generalities, but rather less
pleasant to receive than written reply to
her pretty note would have been. Finally
it came back without any note at all, and
so soiled by much handling that she threw
it into the fire in disgust with it and with
herself. The editors had not been unkind
however. Had they not let her down gen
ty and quietly? She had written gram
matically and with protuson of pretty
phrases. But she had nothing that she
really wanted to say to the public, and
nothing that the public wanted to hear,
and it is the business Of editors to stand
for the public in this matter OF periodical
literature.
COMMITTED TOMORROW,