The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1877-11-15


upon them, and, still standing, opened
the sheet of paper adorned with mono
gram like that upon the envelope, and
read rs follows:
"DEAR GRANr1EY-You went away
angry with me on Sunday evening, and
said that if L would not take back what
L had said you would never come to see
me again. And I was too proud and too
angry to say word to keep you. But,
Grantley, dear, I'm sorry for it now.
You were in the right, and I was to
blame, and I take it all back-every
word. 1 never meant it. You are so
downright you think one must mean all
one says, but indeed I never meant it.
And 80 forgive me and come again next
Sunday night. find that life would
be very sad thing for me if we really
quarrelled. Yours forever, ANN"
$50 !" muttered Mrs. Webb, between
her teeth. "It has gone so far, then
and she has been showing her temper
and angeripg Grantley. Well, if he has
spirit enough to stay away one week,
he'll have spirit enough to stay away al
together. perhaps"
Then she gave an angry stamp.
"Why do I comfort myself with
that ?" she said. "I know this letter
will call him back to her, and he'll be
more in love with her than ever Oh,
if she had not written I know my boy
well enough to know that he would not
go back to her without that. Well, he
hasn't seen it yet and if I choose he
never need. 1t is for his good, know.
Ann Burdock is not the girl for him.
| I'll keep him from her"
She dropped Ann Burdock's letter
upon the fire. There it lay, black and
shrivelled fold of tinder, as her sons
step sounded in the hall, and she cov-
cred it from sight with the kettle.
In came Grantley, his face bright with
the outer cold.
"Setting yourself on fire, mother %
he asked. ~ smell something scorch-
ing"
Its not my Dress" she answered,
and busted herself with the teapot, and
rang the bell for the tea things.
In came the girl with the tray, and
again Mrs. Webb had little fright.
ANY letter for me ?" asked her son,
with an eager look in his face.
"No," she answered family. odd
you expect one %
ing. But met the postman on the
home and get my love-letter. His Joke,
1 suppose"
" 1t was impudent of him." said Mrs.
Webb, not daring to meet her sons eye
"That's love-letter, is it ?"
She tossed him the tradesman's circu-
lar. He glanced at it and put it down.
| H,Nrry hal 1,~0l -z1 4 l..
there were about his eyes and temples !!
How much thinner he seemed than lie
did week or SO ago!
| Was it all that quarrel with the Bur-
dock girl? Would it have been better
that he should have had that mono-
grammed note?
The mother put the thought from
her. She spread the little store OF dain-
ties before her son and tried to make
him eat and though she had been 80
frightened by his questions, she could
not help approaching the dangerous sub
ject herself.
care you going out tonight ?" she
asked.
"No," he answered ct think not. :"
"The neighbors were telling me you
went over the hill to the Burdock's rather
often" she went on.
Well, if 1 have, mother" he answer
ed, "that is no sign 1 shall go again. :"
"Well, there are better places than
the Burdock's," )" said Mrs. Webb, "and
1 thought you'd never think of girl
whose father quarreled with yours, and
may have the evil temper of her mother.
She's fiirt, too, they say"
Then she bounced out of the room.
When she came back Grantley had gone
upstairs.
She heard the boards of his bedroom
floor creak as he walked up and down for
hours, but she did not see him again
that night.
Well, we'll" she said to herself, "hell
get over it..
But, whatever the feeling was, love,
anger. or grief, it did not agree with
Grantley Webb. He grew thinner and
thinner. He took less interest in that
which went on around him. He avoided
all the other young people of the place,
and seemed to have neither youth nor
spirit left.
Gould it be all about that girl Ann,
old Mrs. Webb asked herself, trying, to
cheat herself into the idea that the boy
was only i'll.
But in vain she made him warm possets
and bowls of herb tea. Even if he had
drunk them, which he did not, for they
all went to water the grass of the old
orchard-even if he had drunk them,
they would have done him no good.
Only cne thing could help him-the
only thing that seemed to him impossible
as he sat at his window, staring through
the starlit midnight at the roof of the
Burdock dwelling, never guessing that
under its caves Ann Burdock sat, at once
angry and sorry, thinking of him and
none other.
He had not answered her note he was
unforgiving; but she had vexed him. She
was partly to blame.
The old lady in the rufled night-cap-
who often started from her sleep in
in the big front bedroom of the Webb
home with dream OF letters that curled
up into tinder over the red coal-had
more on her conscience than she knew.
For though Ann grieved, she did not
wear her heart upon her sleeve, but was
outwardly gayer than ever, and fiirted
as she never had before, until at last
the same neighbor who had brought the
news of Grantley's love affair to his
mother, dropping into tea, gave Mrs.
Webb and her son bit of gossip as
they sat at the table together.
Ann Burdock is geing to be married
at last; It's that young man from Lon
don-Mr. Millet."
UI believe weddinos wban COO tbar,