Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1880-05-27

baby eye. so that always remembered
it. But IS | turned to 'Romaine-oh,
how she looked theni I've never seen
anything so beautiful since, she blushed
such rosy red, and her eyes lighted,
and her smile grew dazzling, and I've
thought, as / remembered it, that just
SO Eve might have looked when she
woke and looked upon the world before
/ her. And he turned in the door and
saw her, and then he ran down the
stairs, and mounted his horse; and pres
emily we heard the last of them trooping
over the hill. They took Gulnare and
| Ali with them, though, for all of the
young officer; but the very next day
| Gulnare came into the yard by herself.
and neighed for her oats.
Well, now, do you know, I believe
that from that very moment ROmaine
made that young officer her hero and
| her ideal. She didn't know his name,
she didn't know his regiment, she didn't
know his rank, she had hardly seen his
| face; but, for all that, she just resolved
very likely without putting it in so many
words to herself-that if she couldn't
marry him, she would never marry any,
body, and she would keep herself and ali
her thoughts sacred to this hero. And
she did. And that is what has given her
| this air rofremoteness, almost as il she be-
longed to superior race, you know. She
didn't know whether her hero was alive
or dead; there were skirmishes in
the neighborhood, and before long
a great battle farther off; but there
were no means of learning anything, of
course, and he never came back.
Somehow / think she felt that if he
were alive he would, and I think she
began to look upon him rs dead, and
herself as-well, don't you laugh-as
something like widow; at any rate,
as vowed to him. She was only seven
teen then, you know. Oh. yes, I know
I'm only sixteen myself, and terrible
chatterbox too, Paul says; but l know
that things get fixed in ones mind at
seventeen that even seventeen more
years won't undo, and Romaipe has
only ten years more. But Romaine has
the poetical temperament
Well, in year or two Uncle Paul
died, and left mamma a comfortable
fortune. AS the farm really belonged
tn Paul, when he reached home mamma
decided to come to the city for our win
ters. and to build this little villa for the
summers, and sometimes Paul comes to
US, and sometimes we go to him. A
year ago nearly | came back from
school, Mamma said | was very
pretty. but very uniformed, and she
wondered what my teachers had been
about to leave all this trouble for her,
and she doubted what sort of match I
would make. | said how could ] make
any with Romaine still hanging
on her handsp Whereupon mamma
said Romaine was the most pre-
posterous girl alive; she had Just
let millions slip through her fin
gers, and she didn't believe the
Archangle Michael would make any i'm
preston on her. So / began to watch
Romaine, and found an old brass but
ton was one of her treasures, and l
learned what sort of people it was in
in whom she felt an interest; OBJ
served the care she took of Gulnare, al
though Gulnare was twenty years old;
and / discovered, bv accident again,
put away with lock of Mrs. Brown
ing's bair and leaf from Shelley's
tomb, that brass button and an old torn
visor of a soldiers cap. Again, once
when we were all recounting old times,
and mamma was telling of the fright
she had when the soldier was flourish
ing her cap on bayonet, and the graft
tude she felt to her deliverer, who, she
always did feel, came straight from
heaven to help her, and. for all she knew,
went straight back again, l happened
to be looking at Romaine in the glass,
whereuponshe turned as red as a red rose,
then all at once grew white as a white
rose, was faint, and had to get out of
the room. l made up my mind about
Romaine.
l was sorry, too; for some of Paul's
people who used to come incoming round
her were mighty nice. There was Col
onel Rice 1 don't know what he was
colonel of, some fancy-fair or sidewalk
regiment-Tm sure he'd never smelled
powder except when shooting pigeons;
but he had the littlest foot and hand, and
oceans of money, and a drag. And he
did send Romaine such fiowers and If
she had but thrown her handkerchief,
there was nothing he wouldn't have
given her cashmere shawls to walk on,
and diamonds bright enough to read by.
And there was an English earl's son
just back from buffalo hunting, who
would have made countess of her, only
give him time enough; and goodness
knows how many more of Paul's chums,
and Senator Catchpenny, and the regu-
latlon swells. and Cousin Nicholas.
And Romaine disdained them all
every one of Paul's chums of course, and
Cousin Nicholas on account of the old
family feud that had always kept us
apart; he was hundred-thousandt
ousin or so. And when the English
man was round she just -Americaned
the Americans; and nothing but the
dread of scene with mamma could get
her behind Colonel Rice's horses, al
though / should have been glad of the
chance; and that is the way It had been
with one or another for nine or ten
years, mamma said; and Romaine was
ndoI btedly a fixture.
don't know ab ut your having the
right TO hold yourself so inaccessible, !"
said mamma to her one day, as the wind
ing up of a talking-to that sent Romaine
out OF the room crying. "What is there
about you that no man in America, or
Europe either, that / can see, is fit to
marry you, should like to knowp"
Romaine was dancing that night with
Cousin Nicholas at Mrs Chances ball.
The delicious waltz music made my feet
Just tingle. Mamma let me go to a ball
now and then, to show people what she
had in reserve, Romaine said. But
there was Romaine, so lstless, so lovely,
so Indifferent, and Nicholas looking
down at her so eager, so intent, and then
ending her out into the moonlight, as if
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