Connecticut western news., 1879-07-30
Testers Love Story.

n6SIeT 5 LOft SLOry.
 Miss Payne was thirty.fve if day, but she had managed far better than many of those who were girls with her to keep some of the old freshness in the roses of her cheeks and the old bright ness and luxuriance in her brown hair.
 She was thinking of old times this morning as she rolled out her Aaky crusts.
 Fifteen years ago she had been get ting ready for picnic, just as she was doing now. But there was another in the kitchen then-a young man with a handsome face and laughing eyes, and she remembered how sauciIy he inter- fered with her work and how she threat ened to shower him with the contents of the hour-bowl if he didn't behave him. self and he had dared her to put her threat into execution and she had kept her word.
 She could see him now as he stood that morning looking like veritable miller with his eyes full of mischief as he begged so humbly for her to dust it off. And she remembered, as if it happened yesterday, how when she had undertaken the job, all of a sudden he took her in his arms and kissed her !; and when she shook herself away from him she was such sight to see, with powdered hair and snowy eyebrows and cheeks as white as any ghosts.
 And just then her father had come in and stopped in surprise on the thres- hold, looking from her to John with a twinkle in his eye. And all he said was
 {" Seems to me you forgot to powder spot on your cheek, Hester" and then he went away chuckling, and Hester had proceeded to brush herself up, with sundry threats of dire retribution di- rected at the laughing culprit who had retreated to 8 petition outside, where he felt secure from feminine wrath.
 And the next day the quarrel came which had set his feet in paths far away from that in which she had trod for fif- teen years, and in which she had expect to tread until the end. And she thought it all over this morning with little sigh here and there.
 Her romance WAS not forgotten if it was kept out of sight of curious eyes.
 Yesterday she had keard that new preacher was comlng to the picnic.
 He was to preach his first sermon on Sunday, and everybody said he was a "powerful preacher"
 And his name WAS Ashley.
 "But of course it can't he him." she said to herself, as. she clipped the edges of her pies 'for he was one of the widest, most rattle-brained fellows ever knew, and I'm sure there wasn't anything about him that could be made into minister. But he had one of the kindest hearts in the world, and I was the one to blame."
 "Some one coming here," called out Susan, her niece, from the bedroom up stairs.
 Everything. was in baking-day con- fusion, and the room wasn't swept out yet, and she couldn't attend to visitors until her cake was out of the oven.
 Click went to the gate. Miss Payne dusted off her hand smoothed her shining hair, gave her collar twitch and was ready to answer the visitors knock.
 Something in the laughing eyes which met hers as she opened the door made her start and turn pale.
 "Hester Payne, I'm pretty sure," he said, crossing the threshold.
 "Yes, sir," she answered, with little catch in her voice, and you''-
 "Don't you know me2" he cried, "Im John Ashley. I didn't suppose I'd changed so much that an old friend wouldn't discover some familiar look about me. should know you any. where"
 "Tm glad to see you, John," she said, giving him her hand, with very suspicious moisture in her eyes. "I've been thinking of you, for they said the new minister's name was Ashley. Il can't be that you're the one, can it ?"
 "I'm the man," he answered, with { twinkle of humor in his eye. "I don' suppose it seems possible to you, ol any one else that used to know me, tha I have become minister, but it is so It seems as strange to me as any on, else, but I honestly believe God had work for me to do, and I'm trying to d. it as best can," he added, earnestly.
 "I'm glad of it." she answered. (" always said you'd steady down, but never thought you'd be 8 minister John."
 "That's right" he said, heartily "Don't go making me anybody bu John I'm the same man you used t, know, come back to renew old friend ships and do the work I've undertaken.
 "I'm getting ready for picnic" ez plained Miss Payne, "and I'm bus, inst now, so you'll have to entertain yourself for an hour or so till I get th things out of the oven. Then I'll be a