Litchfield enquirer., 1877-09-13
[From Harper's Bazar:l AFTER DARK.

we uSeu to Gn1nK, even De1Or9 we loved her so much, that Mrs. Dalrymple was a representation of charming old age that might have made poets celebrate it in- stead of youth. Her brown eyes were still as soft and large, if not as bright, as ever;and although the rings of hair round her smooth brow were silvery white, her brows and lashes were yet dark. But it was none of that, nor the soft skin with the delicate rosy bloom that sometimes diffused it, that made the charm of the face; it was the soulful expression there, and the smile sweeter than any young girl knows how to smile-a smile full of inno- cence and love. Her life had not been a very happy one, we used to fancy, she having had some serious cross in her youth, ,and afterward marrying man who she did not very tenderly love, because he loved her, and who ended by abusing her. She had been now for several years widow without children, spending her considerable fortune in kindnesses, and making all the young people in the region her stanch adherents. :.
 She lived at The Cedars, and some one or the other of us was always with her, and it would be hard to say where pleas anter life could be lived than all day long in Mrs. DalrympIe's gardens or behind her horses, and all the evenings, with the breath of roses and honeysuckles about the windows, in her delightful drawing rooms, listening to her old contes, or to the talk of by-gone days in which her contemporaries indnlged when they be- came her guests.
 Among these guests occasionally was MT. Stephen, an elderly person who had come into the neighborhood some years before, and who lived on the next place. where only q hedge divided the lands-a strange, sad, silent old man, concerning whom, as nobody knew anything, everybody conjectur- ed everything. Some said he was an Englishman, some said he was . new Zea- lander; it was generally conceded that he had suffered great calamity; and here and there even It was declared that in dIs- tant State he had been imprisoned under a life sentence. but pardoned out for quiet behavior after fifty years, taking then the property which it was in his power to take, and coming here. Peaceful and gentle as he was, living among his birds and flowers, giving freely to whomsoever asked. he vas generally avoided, and as he sought no one, his life was solitary. He had occasion to look for lost pet on Mrs Dalrymple's grounds, which had led to an acquaintance that he so little fol- lowed up that sometimes she herself would take one of us and go over into his garden, and often she would tap on the long window. and saying gayly. '.Privi- Iege of an old womanp insist on bringing him home to dinner.
 She had done so to-day;for we had sur. prised her-we homeless girls whom she had at last made permanently at home with herself-in an unwonted shower of tears in the morning, tears that continued with more or less force all day. "I must have something now to brighten me, "said she. "Let us go and get Mir. Stephen. We will have an 0naeLette r0uns. There was .OnaeLette rOuDa on the table fifty-three years ago to-day, remember now. It is one of my anniversary days to-day, my dears.'' g-'l s.,.'s.
 ''Hinc itlg lacrimg;" said we, wiping the dear lady's face and trying to make her smile. Somehow we always felt as if she were of our own age. E "Yes, it is one of my anniversary days to-day, said she again, after dinner, as we all sat ln the drawing-room about her, Mr. Stephen not far away in his arm- chair ''It is so long ago that it often seems to have been something I once read. of rather than once lived and felt and sui. tered-oh yes. suffered! fsncy that bright young happy eirl with her lovers is Tn romance con think o4 is ell without suffering now, yet, just tof the pity of 1t. just as you cry over a novel, ,yOu know, l could not help shedding g few tears to-day. *A .'t SAt-t5s@aA