The Hickman courier. [volume] (Hickman, Ky.) 1859-current, 1878-03-29
HIS LANDLADYS DAUGHTER.

---yeS
"Ah, Mr., PGovern, if you could
know how I've toiled and shaved and
pinched that that girl could have an edi.
cation l never had no learning nv.
self"
Precisely--just So"
And l made up my mind that Annie
should be lady, and she is, sir, she
| is
Certainly,-no doubt Really the
fact is--would you mind? 1 am very
busy"
Now the fact was that Mr.. M'Govern
| was determined not to take the slightest
| interest in the world in his landlady's
daughter. And at this moment he was,
also, engaged upon piece of work that
not only absorbed all his energies, but
| apparently presented difficulties that he
was not likely to overcome.
The case lay just here. Mr.. M'Gov-
| ern, salesman and commercial traveller
| for large dry goods house, had recently
made the acquaintance in an adjacent
| town, not as large, but fancying itself
| quite as important, as New York, of a
| young lady who had suddenly insured
him with the exaggerated sentiment we
commonly cali love At least he thought
/
awaken corresponding emotion in the
heart of the fair being to whom ne felt
| anxious and DESTROYS to offer the devotion
of a lifetime. If he had been rich. he
might have overwhelmed her with bou-
| Duets such as can only be produced by a
metropolitan florist. But he was not
rich. On the other hand. if, as he ex-
| pressed it to himself, he Z" had been one
OF those newspaper chaps, who are always
| saying things and writing things, YOU
know, had walk into a girls heart when
they haven't even a respectable pair of
boots, or shilling to get their hair cut. "
even then he might have done something.
But as it was, what could he do?
Finally an idea occurred to him.
| Brilliant in epigram he was not, and
certainly could never hope to be B.; but
somebody had surely once said that
"genius is only indomitable persever-
ance," and there was the hare and the
tortoise, and the little busy bee, and
there was no knowing but that if he gave
a month to it he might yet manage to get
MP something she would like to read-he
could certainly write as good business
| letter as any fellow in the Office. But
then it oughSto be in rhyme. And here
another difficulty presented itself. Her
name was Arabelle? Yet Petrarch had
certainly been in the same scrape; there
isn't word in the language that ends
| like Laura.
So he set valiantly to work, and on the
morning when Mrs. Gibson invaded his
I sanctum to announce her daughter
expected return, he had got just this far
" Midst roses fair, oh A! lovely Arabella-"
Stop there was cellar. But how To
work it in? And here Mr.. NJ Govern was
met by difficulty that had oppressed
many a great poet.
His landlady had broken the chain ell
inspiration besides, it was nine o'clock
he couldn't do better than to 90 to the
office, for there was flesh consignment
of goods that he was expected TO dispose
of. In the evening he would go out and
call upon Arahella which he did, and at
midnight he returned TO his grimy
apartment on Mrs. Gibson's third floor,
more in love than ever.
But on the following evening, when
he came home from the office, he remem-
bered Mrs Gibson's announcement, and
at the tea table he looked for the young
lady in question. Not that he cared
what she looked like, but then
" Hum not a pretty girl, by any
means !" but somehow, he looked again.
llSE6 she bGlt Il SUI ulllc DOuF III
grey merino dress, with a pair of very
pretty hands placidly folded in her lap.
What was the impression she gave him
! Ha he didn't know. Now he had it
she seemed 80 very, yery-funny word
wasn't it well, there was no harm in
| thinking it-clean, that was it. Perhaps
( it was the awful CRIME of Mrs. Gibson 5
front basement did it. Contrast is every
thing, you know. But ali! she wasn't
| like the divine, the beautiful
q Mr.. M'Govern, will you have another
! cup of tea ?''
| Ny what sweet voice
| Now what was it made the old board
ing house day by day so much more in
tolerable than it used to be Perhaps
| it was the dust. Somehow the universal
| dust had ceased to assert itself as for
| merly, and became conspicuous by its
absence. Everything in Mr.. M'Govern' 8
room by some magic got into its right
place. Inanimate things may be to sally
depraved, but somehow his showed an
evidence OF reform that argued the ex-
istence of saving grace somewhere.
/ Where on earth were the holes in his
stockings? He missed them. Certainly
hole in ones stocking Is more honored
in the breach than in the Observance /;
but what peculiar experience for a
clerk, in a boarding house
One day Mr.. MGovern happened to
remember what his landlady had said to
him about her daughters "edicstion.
Poor woman! he didn't wonder some
big word bothered her; every new and
then he came across some that puzzled
him. 1t might be that Annie would be
nice to talk to. But he must get safe
y,
he was tolerably strong himself.
1t is humiliating confession to make
regarding ones hero, but no sooner had
Clarence MGOvern begun to talk politics
with Annie than he speedily made up
his mind that the administration et
our republican government was the one
thing on earth that he knew nothing
about. How humiliatiug it was The
same thing over again. 'If you amt a
rich man or a newspaper chap, what can
you do with a girl? They get their
heads packed full of things at school
that fellow who's got his living to earn
can't know anything about, and if you
haven't got am money This worlds
a beastly holev concluded Clarence
M'Govern; and in that statement he en-
bodied the sentiments of many wiser
man
But in this case it was too bsd. Now
with Arabella, rich, beautiful and we'll
born, it was different; but to be extin-
euished by Mrs. Gibson's daughter he,
Clarence ovcrn--abominable Was
he not rising man, and were there not
indications of good birth in his every
feature and in his very name? To be
sure, he hated to attempt tracing his
lineage; it would bolt up against a
tailor's shop in the Bowery in such an
aggravating manner. But clearly names
sprung from something. Why should
his ancestors have been named MGovern
if they had never had anything to gov
ern p impossiblel But such a plebeian
name as Gibson-bahi
But there was something very delight
| full in Armies society when he kept out
OF deep waters and when one day she
asked him, very sweetly: "Who is Ara
| bella?" Mr.. M'Govern felt that his cup
of happiness was full. With Arabella
| for 6 sweetheart and Annie for a con-
| fidante, what man could want more
The feod-gates of his soul were opened.
He certainly lacked the elo1uence of that
much-to- be-envied newspaper chap; but
Annie was sympathetic, and she got q
notion of his longings, his doubts, his
aspirations, quite as correct as if they
/ had been more elegantly expressed.