Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1877-02-23
A MESALLIANCE-IN THREE LETTERS


A MESALLIANCE-IN THREE LETTERS.
"MY DEAR L DAN.''-wrote Jack
Livingston, from a mountainous county
in New Hampshire, to his college chum
and confident, the Rev. Daniel Delaney
Il have happily broken my leg! The doc
tor assures me 1t is q compound fracture of
rather a serious and complicated nature,
SO that 1 may hope. despite my inevitable
drawbacks of youth and vigor, to be laid
up for some months. But don't pull a long
face in my behalf; rather rejoice and be
exceeding glad. I'm the happiest man in
the world. A benign providence threw me
from the back of Il vicious and untamed
brute over the relentless pickets, and into
the heart of a hitherto inaccessible para
disc, peopled by only two women, one of
them pale, placid, peaceful, profound, pi-
| Gus. the other capable, comfortable, and
| culinary. Mary and Martha Marks, they
are called, and they live together halfway
up the mountain. Their long low cottage
can scarcely be seen at all from the main
road, so hidden is it by a tangled and beau
tiful mass Of bloom, but it appears to the
ascending traveller like a fresh, vivid,
beckoning oasis in the desert of uncon-
promising clay and rock up which he has
been toiling. 1 fell in love with the spot
before [ knew it Was peopled and when
saw the pretty nest, with its irregular
porches and gables, its dormer-windows
and quaint caves, its jutting bits Of wood,
carved into artistic shapes, [ paused be-
fore it with delight, and, with my usual
impudence, went in at once. All the peo-
pie h~ereabouts keep boarders, and although
/ had an uncomfortable misgiving that
here might lie a general exception to the
| plain, the greedy, and the p%rosaic, I had
| the hardwood 20 ask the little maid that
| came to the door if such q thing were pos
sible. This little girl WAS well know to me.
| fortunately. l, in fact, boarded at that
time 18th her people, VINO lived in a mis-
| cradle hand-to-mOuth hay in an 0ld dilap~
idated house half a dozen miles off.
"'Hetty,' whispered, as, with a sort of
prolonged hope, | pleaded thirst, and we
went together to the well, cant you put
| it to these maiden ladies in the light Of a
charity? You know how things are at
home. Tell them | shall only be sketching
up here for a few months at the furthest.
~ told them every thing, Sir said
tIetty how that pappy was drunk most
of the time, and the baby cried and cried,
cellar.
:.'Anu what did they say, Hetty?'
':'Jus. nothing, Sir-only shuddered and
looked kind o'sorry like. Folks say they
hate men; but if they could only see you,
if [ could only tell 'em how different you
are from anybody he~reabouts, il they knew
how much you looked like a picture they've
got of a beautiful holy mai over the man
tel-piece but you bid ne not to chatter,
Sir
".And do you mind every thing l say,
Hetty ~
:'Erery thing, Sir A pause here, Dan
"a sunburned. Sun-giorified face lifted to
mine; eyes which are as quick to tears as
smiles a baby mouth, fresh and dewy as
q violet and as TREMENDOUSLY sweet All,
well, Dan, let's get back to the conversa-
ton again.
"'Then it's a hopeless case, Hetty. I'd
better get back to town.
"'Oh, please, no, not yet; something
may happen. They may be brought to see
you. If you go back to town. A sol
here, Dan, by way Of punctuation.
"'Well, Hetty?
~ shall de- .
"You see, Dan, / have to tell you rerba-
tim, so you'll get the whole gist Of it. This
Hetty Bilsby is a foolish little body, with
an interchangeable crop of hair that takes
every shade of brown in the sun, from a
pale yellow to a deep reddish-ochre. To
colorist these things amount to a study
you know. Then one Can see her pure viz
ginal soul through the u%nfathomal depths
of her eyes. For the rest, she is freckled
thin. and crude in outline. | happened tc
put her in two OF three of my sketches
paying the old woman we'll for her time
but Hetty, being a child of nature, and
babbling i%nnocently, like one of her noun
tain brooks, the rapacious NAV of village
gossip got hold Of it all. The end of it
was, they bundled her out here to service.
However, there's no law against travelling
the highway, and my vicious brute, that
ought to know the road well enough, took
fright at a stump by the way-side the 9th.
er day, and though Hetty was foolish
enough to cling to his Bride. and did check
him in the main, he broke her arm and my
leg, and we were both brought in to be
mended.
'.Hetty lies up over the kitchen some
where. O child, and l am in a capacious
chamber at the front of the house. the
three windows of which command the
whole panorama of splendor in light and
shadow on yonder misty mountain-tops
My leg holds a high carnival of agony at