The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1876-10-04

my harvest 1air-
My splendid lover, strong and true
Whose witching eyes Of tender blue
My heart ensnare.
1.-THE golden corn, the ruby wine,
Is not the best;
A richer harvest home is mino,
A sweeter quest,
Give me my lover 1nhis kiss
Ihave . rounded world OF bliss:
Keep all the rest"
-Harper's.
BABY'S ~GRANDMAMMA.
"No, sir /" said DR.. Stone, emphatic.
ally; "no widows. I've an unconquer.
able aversion to them, and have followed
old Weller's advice to Samivel since my
earliest boyhood, and most carefully be-
wared Of 'em. If ever I marry, the bride
must be a young girl; 80 young, in fact,
that I can be almost sure-no one can
be quite sure of anything where q
woman is concerned-that 1 am her first
and only Don't screw up your face in
that outrageous manner, Payne; you
look as though you were going to have o
fit. Laugh and have done with it, and
then let's stop talking nonsense, for ]
haven't the slightest idea of marrying,
or falling in love, or anything of the
Sort"
"No old bachelor aver has," said
Payne. "But I say, Doc, if I were
you, I'd have a neat little card dangling
from a button hole bouquet, with the in
scription, No Widows for, 'ponhonor,
you're exactly the sort of chap a well-to,
do, pretty, susceptible widow would be
spoons on. Handsome, clever, and just
turned forty
"Stufl" growled the doctor. What
a fool you are, Payne" And then,
glancing from the Office window, he con-
tir.:d, as his friend, with a mischievou6
twinkle in his eyes, was about making
some further remarks: Sand do be
silent for a few moments, if such a thing
be possible, for here comes young Phil
lips nursemaid, and in a hurry, too,
which is something remarkable for that
usually easy going and eminently gen.
teel young person. Well, my girl" as
she entered the Office, "what's the mat
ter ?"
ooh, DOCTOR" she gasped, "baby's
took very sick, and we're awful scared,
and his mothers away, and won't be
home till night" .
"Wouldn't be much good if she was, D
muttered the doctor; Ga young bit Of q
thing, looking like a baby herself"
One of the kind q man might be oil.
most sure had never loved another
hey, Stone" asked Payne.
But Stone vouchsafed him no reply.
"Who's with the child now2" he in
CURED of the frightened girl.
"The seamstress, sir. We've sent
for his grandmamma, but we're afraid
she's away from home too, cause Mrs.
Phillips scarcely every goes shoppin'
without her."
"Well, run ahead; I'll be there in o
moment "-struggling into his ~overcoat.
"And, Payne, take care of the office.
I won't be long. There's q new book on
surgery to amuse yourself with until
come back. Capital article where the
leaf is turned down-a man blown al.
most into ~pieces-but find it for your
SELF"
"Thank you," said Payne; "but il
it's all the same to you, old fellow, !
prefer something not quite so anus
ing"
When DR.. Stone arrived at the dwell
ing Of the Phillipses, the nursemaid in.
formed him, IS she opened the door,
that "the baby had taken a turn for
the better, dear lamb, and had been
sleepin' peacefully for tho last ten min
utes."
"Ill take q look at tho little fellow"
said the doctor, springing lightly up the
stairs and gently opening the door OF
the nursery.
The baby lay in its crib fast asleep,
and by its side, holding n tiny hand,
sat q very pretty woman, who, ct the
first glance, the doctor decided to beabout
twenty-at the next, about twenty-five.
Her golden hair was knotted with artistic
carelessness ut the back of her small,
shapely head, q few pretty tendril-lik
curls escaping to lie like little sunbeams
on her low broad brow. Her eyes were
large, soft. bright, dark brown, and
shaded by long silky lashes. Her nose,
slightly "tip-tilted," as Tennyson has
it, lent an archness to her face, which
otherwise, with such eyes and 80 perfect
o mouth and chin, would have been
"faultily faultless." Her dress of some
lusterless gray stuff, with q bright blue
ribbon at the throat and soft lace ruf1es
at the wrists, chung close to a beautiful
form ; and the hand that held the baby's
was small, snowy white, and daintily
shaped. All OF which did the doctor
take in in three quick glances, after the
manner OF his kind.
GA seamstress "a princess |" was
the Judgment ne pronounced mentally
as he drew off his gloves, and, with un-
usual urbanity, proceeded to make some
professional inquiries about the child.
The seamstress answered in a wonder
fully pleasant voice and in q remarkably
well bred and self-possessed manne
"Baby seems to be all right now" said
she; shut I think you had better wait
a little while, doctor, for fear the spasms
might return"
The doctor seated himself, not at all
unwillingly, it must be confessed, and
while the baby still slumbered entered
into converse with his beautiful COM
panion. In q few moments he found
himself turning over the leaves of a
Browning which he had taken from a
small table by her side, and then, in an;
other few moments, giving her, to his
great surprise, his opinion of that
writer and his works.
I say, to his great surprise, for the
doctor was really q shy, reserved man,
and not at all given to talking poetry to
pretty women; but this woman was so
pretty.
As he went on, waxing eloquent, it
suddenly struck him that a needle
woman would not DO familiar with these
poems, and he paused, to have her, to
his greater surprise, take up the sub
ject, and deliver q criticism far better
and cleverer than his own
From Browning and that more re-
splendent genius, his wife, to Tennyson,
Dickens, Thackcray, and at last George
Eliot, of whom the seamstress spoke
with a deeper crimson on her cheeks
and o brighter light in her glorious
brown eyes. "Silas Marner," she said,
"is the loveliest - By this time the
doctor had become 80 interested in
watching the play of the prettily curved
Iips md the bewitching dimples that