Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1878-08-09
From All the Year Rouud.l
7IiE mo- .SE ACROSS TTE STREET
a Story in two Chnpter-

TIiE HOt SE ACROSS THE STREET..
a story in two Chapters
CHAPTERI l.
1t was the ualTowest street imaginable, a
mere tagged passage, indeed protected by
little posts and chains from suspicion even of
being anything so vulgar as thoroughfare,
and opening into one of those quaint old
Bloomsbury squares at one end and n quaint
er old crescent at the other There was n
church at the corner, old too, with n square
Gothic tower, built in gray stone, green with
damp and black with age and SCOT, and abut-
ting directly ON the pavement, without any
intervening space of grass or gravel to give it
dignity ANA secluson. The house stood close
beside it, little in the shadow Of the big
tower, and divided from the sidewalk by IA
flight of stone steps and Hn iron railing u
tail, narrow, dHrk-rod building OF the time of
Queen Anne, with Il ponderous bIazen knock
er and a couple Of OfnntiqGat,d d rou cNtinguish-
ers which the uk-boys were wont 20 use to
quench the hariug torches in the old days,
after their mistress had emerged, powdered
and hoped and with dainty patches set cum
ningly on check and chin, from the sedan
chair which had borne her to = nights fcstiy-
ity at Ranelagh or NauXhall. and had been
l4bllNADN ~ AtNl ulhONNltil anu Id lDIl
up the tall flight of steps aforementioned.
wonder was ever a damsel among those
high-heeled and delicate.featurod bellies Of
the eighteenth century one-tcnth part as love
ly Us she who reigned i'll the old red house
when | lived over the way? All me how
often have sat and watched her, doing moth
ing, thinking nothing, only taking in the
mere sight of her grace and beauty, as if they
We're rest and reireshmcut to the wcaried
mind and worn-out body
was only London surgeon, "A plain, mid
dle-agod bachelor, with a large practice. and
big, dingy house, facing the old red brick
tenement over the way n house in which
snatched my hasty hours of rest and devour-
cd hurried meals, and saw servant girls and
other impecunious patients for u couple of
hours in the morning but which had never
been sanctited by woman's loving smile, or
gladdened by the patter of baby feet or
made beautiful by the flowers and needle
work, and thousand and one trifles which
make even the homelielt home" so different
from the mere house in which a man lives
The house across the street was of far more
interest to me than my own.
l suppose Miss Robarts must have been
about one-and-twenty when she and her father
first came to live there. She attracted my at
tention at once-a tall, slim, delicate looking
Blri chleHy noticeable for the languor Of
bearing and movement, in contrast TO the no
BILE lines of her face and form, rs she sailed
out of a morning to early service at the gray
old church; the bloomy whiteness of her
cheek showing winter near her plain black
dress and the red edges of her big prayer
book. The book seemed too heavy for the
slender fingers which carried it. Doctors no
tcathese things, you See but / am glad to
think began to take an interest in her, even
then.
The interest grew, however, even when the
cause for it was gone; for, before many
months, | saw that the sweet face, with its
crown of nut-brown hair, looking out over n
fence of mignonette for her fathers return of
an evening, had gained delicate rose tint,
Which showed brighter for the olive-green
DackgrounG OF the heavy wlndow-curtains'
against "hicA her small mead took golden
tGge'
'hlhA her lather was very iona OF her,
lie was thlh, stih-lookmg, whlte-halred
man, ana used to scold her sometimes for
coming out INTO the evening AIR with nothing
on her mead when she met him at the door in
the summer twilight and sometimes | could
near ms voice sounding sharp and peevish,
us he shllied forth to business of a morning.
But you could not see ms face when he came
out with her on his arm on Sunday, or the
way III Whlch he glared at any man bold
enough 10 Ilt ms eyes TO her, without telling
IN moment th''t she was tile very PRIDE and
Joy OF ms hear''
uoh Emo" WIeh l hrst began to watch
Ior my Iair helShbor, ana note her do.ngS.
lou see had NOT much TO amuSe me III my