The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1879-03-12
WHAT HERBERT SAID.

"Don't go, Ellie; please don't
What will Herbert say?"
CT don't care in the least what Her
bert says. he has no right to dictate
to me. Not that he ever does," Ellie
added, quickly. "Mr. Granville Fer
guson has invited me to go to the park
with him, and there are foul other
ladies and their escorts to join US there.
I am going and I shall wear my new
cashmere. It is just the right length
for skating. If you were good-natured,
now, you would lend me the sealskin cap
Uncle Will last gave you"
"You can have the cap, Ellie, but 1
do feel bad about Herbert. You know
he loves you"
"He has never told me he loves me-"
"Never told you he loves you ?" said
Carrie. "Don't he come here every
afternoon or evening to see your"
"How do you know he don't come to
see Aunt Fanny, or you2"
"Ellie |"
There was such keen pain in Carries
tone that pretty Ellie sprang from her
seat and remorsefully threw her arms
around her sister, kissing her warmly,
and saying, eff everybody knew you as
well as I do, Carrie, how good and
sweet you are, never cross or out OF
temper like me, and knowing twenty
things where I have learned one, you
would have fifty lovers. Men are such
idiots. If a girl has a pretty face, that
is all they ask"
Cartainly, if this speech was true
Ellie Wilson had no aus to complain
of natures unkindness. She was very
pretty, with saucy, sunny face, full of
sparkle and animation, and a dainty
little figure, every movement of which
was graceful.
But Carrie. only two years older than
her sister, and not twenty-five, without
any great beauty naturally, had, through
the carelessness of a nurse in her infancy,
been the victim of a fall which had cut
open n cheek, leaving a long, red scar,
dis6guring her for life. Her soft blue
eyes, her glossy brown hair, her clear
complexion, were all lost sight of in the
long blood-red mark that covered one
side of her face from temple to chin. It
grew purple in the cold air, crimson in
summer heat, but it never faded away.
It had been poor Carries cross from
childhood. Her school-life had been
embittered by the taunts Of her compan-
ions, and she had shut herself up in a
great measure from society from her
sensitive shrinking from notice. It was
not perhaps strange that Ellie, praised
and petted all her life for her beauty,
should also have given undue weight to
her sisters misfortune. That Carrie
would be an old maid and Ellie make a
brilliant match was a certainty in the
minds of the family and friends.
But relatives and friends alike were
pleased when Herbert Brandon, after
the death of MI. Wilson, became o con-
slant visitor at the house of the orphan
girls. He had been their fathers clerk,
and later his junior partner, and still
carried on with one other surviving
partner the business of Wilson & Co.,
though the head Of the house had been
three years dead at the time my story
opens. Business at first, and afterward
certainly his own good pleasure, brought
him often to see the young ladies and
their aunt, who had filled their dead
mothers place for many long years. He
was a man whose love would honor any
woman, and Carrie was not alone in
supposing that pretty Ellie was the
chosen of his heart.
Carrie liked to think so. Of all the
suitors that came to visit her pretty SIS
ter, Herbert was certainly the one she
would select for a brother. Never hay
ing thought it possible that she could
win closer love than a brothers., Carrie
was naturally very anxious about Ellie's
choice, and she shrank with positive
pain whenever she thought that Gran
vile Ferguson was usurping Herbert's
place. He was a far handsomer man,
wore finer dress, had diamonds spark
ling upon his shirt-front and little fin
ger, lived in handsome chambers, and
vas the pink of courtesy. And yet Car
RE did not like him.
On the day when Ellie 80 wilfully
persisted in accepting Granville Fergu-
sons escort to the park, Herbert was
coming to spend the evening, to try
some duets. But Ellie said Herbert
and the duets could be had at any time,
while skating was a luxury to be seized
whenever the opportunity occurred.
30, when Granville Ferguson, in his
jaunty overcoat, with o tiny bouquet
in the button-hole, made his appearance
just before sunset, he found Ellie with
the new brown cashmere and sealskin
hat waiting for him. She had put the
crispest of RULES into a ruff lined with
blue silk and the bewildering blue bow
under her pretty chin, and her hair was
il the pufiest Of golden curls under the
rim OF the cap. When the ornamental
water, brilliantly illuminated by the
moon, was reached, Ellie's feet could
scarcely keep still to have the skates
fastened.
They were we'll matched upon the ice,
for there were few of her W sex as
graceful and expert upon skates as
pretty Ellie Wilson. In her eager e1-
element she overlooked, entirely for
got, the fact that the party her escort
had promised to meet did not appear,
and she glided among the groups
gathered around her, nodding now and
again to friend or acquaintance, spark
ling and happy.
She was getting tired, and turned to
suggest to her companion a few mo-
ments' rest on the bank, when she saw
him accosted bytwo men, who, without
skates, were standing upon the ice near
him. They we're not near enough for
her to hear the conversation, as she had
darted off a few minutes before for a
long sweep on the CLASSY surface of the
lake, surprising Granville Ferguson fol-
lowed beside her.
It made her uneasy to see him walk
ling away with his new companions,
leaving her alone in the crowd around
her. She knew that it was getting late,