The Superior times. [volume] (Superior, Wis.) 1870-1912, 1879-10-18
THE POT-POURRI.

1t was just after the roses had done
blowing. They were all sitting by twi-
light in the yellow drawing-room-
somehow It always seemed twilight there
when it was dark everywhere else-and
Rosamond got up and stirred her pot
pourri in the old claret- colored Chelsea
Jar between the Fsindows; and such a
sweet, faint odor of rose leaves stole
through the room that the old people
felt as if they too were young and the
time was June again.
1t Is too powerful" said Miss Efing-
ham, waving her big peacock-festher fan.
Too powerful2' said Mrs. Penn,
putting away the silver curl that the
brown eyes. Not for me. Nothing ia
50 pleasant to me as the pot-pourri, and
in the old jar, too. 1t is not the rose,
but 1t is the memory of the rose. It
brings back all my youth. And although
age is pleasant enough as it comes to me,
yet youth was so very sweet-so very
sweet, my DEAR" and the silver voice
paused, while a slender hand went
searching through the purple gloom for
another hand, and found 1.-THE hand
of the speakers husband "People
think it so sad to grow DID," she said
But every year has been to me like
another step to an upward path to para
disc. Ones wings are growing all the
way. And one has so much to remem-
Der, to look on when one pauses, to see
in new lights. Do you suppose that
either of us would change places with
BOsamond and Bertram there, who have
life before them?"
Not )" said the voice that responded
Not that you would not be glad to
live your summers over sgain, PaulY'
/ am sure of them now. at anv rate"
said the husband 81 have them.
Nothing can take them from u.s.
And we ask nothing more" she said,
than to be laid in one grave when the
long night comes"
And the endless morning." he MUIR
INJURED.
"And even the endless mornings can
hardly be brighter than some of the
mornings of our yOuth-than the morn
ing when we first made the -pourri,
Paul. You remember that morning,
Paul?"
"Do you remember it, Aunt Persist"
asked Rosamond.
"Shall | ever forget it2'' she said,
with a low sweet laugh. "Why, when
| am dead remembrance of that morning
viii bloom out of my grave like flower!
And yet it was much such morning as
any day last month-only so glorious, so
gilded, SO full of sunshinel But what a
gray and lowering, showerins dawn it
had If we had never had that little
quarrel, PAUL. All, | was so sad when
l parted the curtains that daybreak.
thought was done with my life-and it
was a PITY so young"
Here Rosamond pinched Bertram's
arm.
$50 young. And might have been
blessed, /" said her old Aunt Persis. eff
| gave that morning, just the swiftest
glance across the garden to PauPs win
dow, and saw that he sat there over his
book, he could not tell. And then /
dressed me; and | thought of some
young girl being dressed in her grave.
And then pinned on my white frock-
a Ia JdueuSe, you call it now, Rosamond
and went down to the rose garden to
pick the flowers with the dew on them
for the pot-pourri that grandmamma
had hidden me never to forget in the
time of roses"
ga II the time of roses
We plucked them WENT"
sang Bertram, half under his breath.
"And | plucked them till my basket
on my arm was heaped. The rose gar
den was just as it is to-day, on a terrace
higher than the rest of the garden. And
when | turned about | saw Paul had
come down, and was walking in the
poplar alley of his grandfather's garden,
bare-heSded, with his hands behind him.
and his head fallen ON his breast. All,
how beautiful he was! so tall, so dark. so
like fallen star. And ] loved him so;
and we had quarreled. ] had been mis-
cradle just forty-eight hours. 1t seemed
to me that [ had never been happy. l
mad lost my youth; I was old; l had
come into the shadow. There was an
other young girl," she said, after a mo-
ments pause, as if even the sorrows of
youth had their sweetness that it was
good now to remember, "that PauPs
grandfather had chosen for him to
marry. ! may speak about it now, /
suppose; she long since ceased to care;
she was she is, my dearest friend,
and Paul has always loved her
bAoNhSI CI6 HdS hdu USuy
suffers since; with one of them she
pighted faith, so she has kept her
trust with death. But IL thought
that because | adored Paul, all the
world was at his feet; and when his
grandfather said this other was to be his
choice, with her great fortune at COM
mand, and | remembered that had only
this house and its belongings for my own
fortune, why, then | looked well after
my lover. Yes, he was my lover. | had
lett sure of that, although he had never
SAID so, never exactly said so in words;
but we do not always need words. AND
now, all at once, all in twinkling, as if
the sun had gone out at noon, he was the
lover OF another girl And could not
nave believed or dreamed that the for
tune would have made any difference
with Paul, o. the grsndfsther's wish, or
heavens thunder bolts even, before |