Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1880-03-12

! PNA1tp
Her attention at length arrested by
this soft importantly, Margaret Willis
| paused and looked around to see what
it was that had set her heart muTmur-
| ing inarticulately like a mother over
the cradle of her sleeping child. 1t was
no sight or sound, though the birds
were singing their noon lullabies.
1t was perfume, strong. penetrating
and familiar-how more familiar than
anything else there even while unrecop-
nized! She stood and breathed it mo-
ment, then bent and looked searchingly
of every hue, and set thickly among
them, and looking over their heads,
were stalks of pennyroyal, the dear old
New England herb, studded all along
the branching stems with tiny blue blos-
SONS.
Picture after picture started up. The
large, old-fashioned mansion house.
with its pleasant verandas, its fields and
gardens and woods, appeared, all its
twittering swallows circling round; the
boiling spring bubbling up under q
birch tree in the field; the we'll, with its
curb, pole and bucket, mossy and dank,
in the midst of the chip-strewn back.
yard; shining tin milk cans driving on a
sunny bench outside the back door:
lace curtains waving in the drawing
room windows, and transparent muslin
curtains fluttering and putting out from
The chambers above. A blue smoke
curled up from the chimney of Che
kitchen, where the floor was so white
and the bird's-eye maple ir ming table
turned back on hinges and left q great
chair for all but ironing days. The
town, but a mile distant, looked over
an Intervening hill, and the primeval
forest hung dark as thundercloud close
at the other hand. 1t was the best of
the city with the best of the country.
She had gone into the woods with her
brother Jamie. She had coaxed him
to take her, and jamie never refused
her anything. How good he was 20 her
that day, lifting her over the wet places,
giving her all the little yellow Yiolets
he found, holding her up to look into
birds nest while the mother bird
chirped distressfuily from a near tree,
and telling her such wonderful things
of birds and trees and flowers that he
had learned from books.
Picture followed picturesque bright,
others mournful, many of them inter-
woven with the simple herb which she
held clasped to her breast with uncon-
scious hands.
There was John. With a dreamy
smile on her lips and her unseeing eyes
fixed, her fancy saw him grow up
through all her remembrances of him:
first, Jamie's dearest friend and play
fellow; later, friend too and forever her
friend. An earnest, good boy, and an
earnest, good man-as firm as rock in
principles and character, and with some
thiDg that might remind one of the rock
ia his form and face, in the square,
bread shoulders, the wide forehead, and
tho lif.A mouth thA5 was never too
ready To smile aud never had too much
to say. lie WAS gentle, 700. From the
time when, i'll her seventh year, he
lifted her, all wet and trembling, out of
the brook into " hich she had fa len, and
carried her home i'll his arms. TO their
last interview, when she had iaughingly
turned aside the declaration Of love that
for the hundredth lime he had attempted
to make, and left him with that hurt yet
patient look which she had so often
caused his face to assume, in all that
tine not IA hasty or unkind WORD had he
spoken to her. and never once had he
neglected wish of hers or seemed to
resent, even in his own heart, her care
less coquetry. This love had begun on
the day when, halt drowned and wholly
terrified, she had clung round his neck
and sobbed out her gratitude to him
"Oh, John! how do love you for COM
ing up just now! The water was chok-
ing me. l wish you would always stay
close to me just as long as | live" And
John had responded, with his cheek
blushing warm against her chilly wet
one: "T'll never fail you when you
want me, Pansy." And he never had
failed her. A bell rang. Was it the
bell of the school-house hidden behind
the trees, or of one of the many churches
in town beyond the hillp 1t rang so
loudly and sounded so near that it broke
through her reverie. Her mind came
back to her eyes, and looked about, re-
eeiving shock that almost blinded her
For all the landscape seemed in a whirl
and her visions reeled and fell like q
city over an earthquake. The slim birch
trees thickened to dense chestnuts; the
branches of the pines ran up the trunks
as an umbrella runs up in opening, and
set themselves in tutt high in the air
the wooden house with its long veran.
das changed to palace with sculptureC
stone balconies and crowned with the
airy arches of grand lOqgtG and where
moment before the savage woods ha(
climbed the hillside, a white flood O
water came falling down in foamy
plunges, sprinkling the leaning flowers
and the masks and the cupids as it fell
She saw the splendor of it all, and re
membered a century old temptation 81
clearly that it seemed to be newly whis
pered in her ear: "All this will I civ,
thee if, falling down, thou wilt worship
me-"
One bright, sweeping glance over tn
whole; then, gathering up her lon,
skirts, she went swiftly toward th
house. The first breakfast bell ha,
ceased ringing, and the other would rim
in fifteen minutes. Reaching the house
she was told that gentleman was wait
ing in the salon for her.
: What an hour for visit!" sh
: thought, discontentedly. as she wen
, trailing through the empty rooms to th
last. where tall, broad -shouldere
man stood at window looking out
, At sight of him the blood rushed t
her forehead. 81 am bewitcheI to-da
/ Il am certainly bewitched!' sh
thought, and walked slowly toward hin
| not SO aroused from her former dreal
as to have laid aside or thrown ava
: the bunch of pennyroyal she had claspe
{ to her bosom.
a He turned at the light rustic of HI
0 garments. His face was pale, but h
t manner quite calm. "How do you d
t MargaretP" he said, as if he had seen h,
! the week before. II hope / am not il
a trudingP"
How it happened she knew not, bat
s sight of him all the old mischief al
/ malice woke in her heart. The inten
q hlun ewes which were drinking in h