The Lamoille news. (Hyde Park, Vt.) 1877-1881, 1878-06-12
HYDE PARK, VT. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 12 1875
"Time flies fast. " said the old rentl,

"Time flies fast, said the old gentle
man.
"Fearfully fast. " sighed the old lady.
She was not looking at him now, but
at the flowers in the borders at her feet.
"Mr. Carney was a widower when l
knew him, and had but one child-a
daughter" said the old gentleman in
grey. ''She is living, is she notP"
eyes, said the old lady.
"But she canuot be Miss Carney
still, said the old gentleman.
"But she is, said the old lady, and
looked him in the face again.
Their eyes met. Hers were brown
and his were grey.
People alter out of knowledge in
forty years." said she; sand how on
earth l came to know you 1 don't know
for you look like your own grandfather,
Mark Turner IA
"Ask the old gentleman to walk in,
then, Miss Carney" said he; ''for he
ought to be more weary than he used to
grow on the same road lifetime ago,
coming from the mill, you remember,
Priscy, every Sunday evening""
''Did your" said she, pretending to
forget. "Oh, yes of course I'll ask
you to walk in, Mr.. Turner"
She turned. He followed her.
They sat down in the parlor-one on
either side of the polished table.
Overit, between the windows, hung
the looking-glass with its narrow gilt
frame.
The book lease filled the recess.
On the mantel.piece were some shell
flowers under glass,
There was the stiff sofa with the black
cushion like slice of futed column;
there were the six chairs to match, and
the claw-footed sideboard.
There had been no children to break
or scratch things.
ALI was the same as when he left it
last and saw Miss Carney standing in
the middle of the floor with her long
black hair in curls about her shoulders,
and blue ribbon around her taper
girls waist.
Now he looked at her, and she was
really old and stout, but somehow she
seemed to be nobody else, but Priscy
Carney.
She saw him looking from the furni-
ture to her face, and interpreted his
thought.
eyes" she said, almost angrily, sis it
not strange? There are the bits of wood
and glass and china, just as they used
to be. There are the oak trees, only
finer and greener. The very grass and
flowers might be the same; and here am
I, old, faded and lonely, and my hand
some, bright-eyed father dead in his
grave, and all 1 care for gone. 1 wish
[ were gone also. / think people who
have not seen each other for forty years
need not seek each other again. 1 wish
they would not come to me after being
all the same as dead for forty years.
It is precisely like seeing ghosts"
She looked as though she wanted to
cry.
"Poor old ghost" said he, "whom no
one wants to see-not even those who
promised to remember him forever"
"Forty years is much worse than for
ever" said she, "and fifty-six is ter
ribly unromatic age"
Eyes, it is" said he; "but it is good
age enough for ghosts. BY the way, do
you like ghost stories? Let me tell you
one.
"Once there was q ghost-now I
think of it, he wasn't always a ghost;
he was boy once-the son of a miller
down by the water side. He worked in
the mill and was foury and white as a
ghost should be most of the time; but
he was happy and gay, and many things
happened as he liked. One of them
was when o certain rich farmer in the
came to the mill. The
grain his servants brought in the great
wagons, but he, the farmer, used to
drive to the mill with his little daugh
ter in the gig beside him. She was
pretty child, with long curls, and her
eyes were big and brown.
"She made a pretty picture in her
white dresses and bright ribbons, and
she came when she was SO young that
she used to hold her hands out to this
boy and cry. Come here, little boy.
"For that was what she liked to see
best, the -four sitting through the fine
muslin. Every week she used to come
until the miller sent his boy away to
chool. When he came home again
she was girl of sixteen, prettier than
ever, and she remembered asking him
to let her see the -four sift, and she
talked to him while her father was at
tending to his business; and the days
when she did not come the boy cared
nothing for, and the days that brought
her were marked aud picked out as
blessed days.
"After awhile he got over the shyness
that kept him from going to see her, and
went. and she was not displeased. She