Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1879-09-26

'"There, Winn Wright, you've tracked your
horrid boots over my kitchen floor Won't
you crer learn what door mats are made for 2"
cried Meb Wright, fastening her sleeves be
fore the open door of the little sitting room.
II do detest these warm, sloppy February
days. wish when we freeze up in Novem-
ber we needn't thaw out. until the first of
April. The mud and the slop must be gone
through in the spring, anyway, and this
freezing and thawing, freezing and thawing
between whiles is just exhausting!"
Winn Wright, locomotive engineer a big
fellow, not graceful, sat absently gazing into
the narrow front yard, and drumming on the
window ledge He looked tired.
I'm tired, too" thought Meb ITS a
hard, tiresome world, harder for working
women than for men, no use in whining
over it, though. We must take life as it
comes"
II don't believe you care much for me
nowadays, Meb," said Winn blunty.
Meb curled her lip. Itsecmed particularly
ridiculous in Wnn to talk sentiment now,
for'he had tar streak obliquely across his
forehead, and wore coarse cloth with imper-
fecty pressed seams and ragged buttonholea
II wish you wouldn't drum on that sill,
Vim, you know how annoying it is
After half hour which Meb spent, for the
most part, outside the little sitting room,
pot. Out to Plympton and back would make
up his days trip.
Meb put on her pretty brown cashmere
with white lace and cardinal ribbon at her
throat, and cardinal loops in her hair, and
took the chair by the window.
She heard the occasional slush of wheels
through the melting snow outside, or the
thud of rubber-shod feet through the water
on the spongy ice, the ceaseless drip from the
IL r. a.
chirp of the canary above the window-gar-
den.
Meb felt sad. Little did she think when
playing the organ on Sundays in the Sweet
willie Methodist church. and taking lessons in
French and water-colors at the Young Ladies'
Institute that she should one day be doing
her own work, and economizng to pay for a
little house with four rooms only, on the low
er floor.
She might "have done better" There was
Samuel Fletcher who every summer, now,
came to Sweetville with his carriage horses
and his saddle horses. There was Charlie
Fordyce and why, Winn was good fellow,
She loved Vim, of course but Winn had a
kind of honest stupidity that she feared would
prevent his ever 'rising." That stupidity
wearied her. Life was wearisome anyway
cheerless and prospectless.
1t may not be the most judicious intellect
ual exercise for men or women to review mat
rmOnial opportunities, even if without the
slightest disloyalty of imagination Might
have-beeus are extremely slippery premises,
anyway. Possibly, my dear sir, had you pre-
sumed upon the smiles you once chose to ig-
more, you would have found smiles signih-
cant only according to the imagination that
interpreted them. Possibly, my dear madam
the man who once impressively offered him
self to You, now ascribes the mortifying act
to a transient impulse, and 10 sure he should
have found way out of the engagement had
you accepted him.
Meb's door-bell rang. She was familiar
with the humiliation of answering it in per-
SON Charlie Fordyce was ON the steps
Charlie Fordyce had no tar streaks across his
face. lie was starched, brushed and pol
ished to the last degree. Charlie was en-
ployed at the "Ofice." He inquired for
Winn.
''IIas he left the depot think ?" asked he
as he followed Meb into the little sitting
room.
Il heard the Bucephalus signal at the Fer
ry.street crossing n minute ago"
"That's too bad Ellis sent word to have
McGregor take Little Rhody' out to Plymp-
ton in Winns place, and the Bucephalus go
on to Sidon, and come in with the night
freights. We've Just had telegram that
there are a hundred and twenty-five cars
waiting to be moved from Sidon. They were
delayed by the snow-storm on the Central
and Shore Line last week. and have only just
got through"
The chair Meb had set for Mr.. Fordyce
was very easy. He was tired after the slip
perry sloppy walk, and, since his pay went
on Just the same, why shouldn't he linger?
"Were you out to hear Janauschek last
EVENING""
mo; there was some delay,-a bridge
gone, and Winn didn't get in until nine
O'clock"
''Of course you were at the concert of the
Glee Club last week.
No; Winn seldom took her anywhere. He
liked to settle down at home evenings.
Mr.. Fordyce reviewed the performances,
minging the choicest of the art phrases culled
from his daily paper with others of unknown
derivation but legitimate sound.
Very humble and hard seemed the round of
uneducated labor in which Meb moved to the
circle of art and culture in which Mr. Fordyce
ornamentally revolyed.
Meb failed to recollect that Mr.. Fordyce's
monthly receipts were little more than Winn's,
and that artistic revolutions, if continued for
any length of time, must depend upon some
considerable pecuniary steam power and
quite tangible betting. She had all that blind