Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1880-06-06

social power. Her bright, disdaintul
eyes had searched ont all the wheels and
cranks of the social machine, and with
time and familiarity dlsdain was rapidly
losing itself IN ambition. 1t was game,
and brilliant and exciting one it seemed
to her. She was beginning to find that
her beauty was a weapon to use, not
D.erely pretty flower. It might pro-
cure her other advantages besides coro-
net.
But just as her Imagination was about
taking fire and she thought: IL will car
ry in half-open rose and give it to him
before them all, and give him smile
with it which he shall understand" some
other second thought set aside her half
formed decision.
Walking thus preoccupied, almost tor
mented, she became conscious presently
of some sensible touch that reached her
heart, yet so delicately that she was not
aware by what sense il entered. 1t per-
sisted softly, withdrawing for an instant
to make its presence more clearly felt on
returning, and at every return the emo
ton it caused became perceptible.
Her attention at length arrested by
this soft importantly, Margret Willis
paused and looked around to see what it
was that had set her heart murmuring
inarticulately like a mother over the
cradle of her sleeping child. 1t was no
sight or sound, though the birds were
singing their noon lailabies.
1t was perfume, strong, penetrating
and familiar-how more familiar than
anything else there even while unrecog
nized She stood and breathed it mo.
ment, then bent and looked sea1chingly
in the grass. It was gay with flowers
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 bios
SONS.
Picture after picture started up. The
large, old fashioned mansion house, with
its pleasant verandas, its fields and gar
dens and woods, appeared, all its twit-
tering swallows circiing round; the boil
ing spring bubbling up under birch
tree in the field; the well, with its curb,
pole aud bucket, messy and dank, in the
midst of the chip-strewn backyard; shin
ing tin milk cans drying on sunny
bench outside the back door; lace cur
tains waving in the drawing room win
dows,and transparent muslin curtains fut-
tering and putting out from the chambers
above. A blue smoke curled up from
the chimney of the kitchen, where the
floor was SO white, and the bird 's.eye
maple ironing table turned back on hing
es and left great chair for all but iron
ing days. The town, but mile distant,
looked over an intervening hill, and the
primeval forest hung dark as thunder
cloud 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 to her that
day, lifting her over the wet places,
giving her all the little yellow violets he
found, holding her up to look into bird s
nest while the mother bird chirped dis
tressfully from near tree, and telling
her such wonderful things of birds and
trees and flowers that he had learned
from books.
Picture followed picture-of some
bright, others mournful, many of them
interviewer with the simple herb which
she held clasped to her breast with I'M
conscious hands.
There was John. With dreamy smile
on her lips and her unseeing eyes fixed,
her fancy saw him grow up through all
her rememberanccs of him: first, Jamie's
dearest friend and playfellow; 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 something that might
remind one OF the rock in his form and
face, in the square broad shoulders, the
wide forehead, and the firm mouth that
was never to ready to smile and never had
too much to say. He was gentle, too.
From the time when, in her seventh year,
be lifted her, all wet and trembling, out
of the brook into which she had fallen,
and carried her home in his arms, to their
interview, when she had laughingly
turned aside the declaration Of love that
for the hundredth time 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
time not hasty or unkind word had he
spoken to her, and never once had he
neglected wish of hers or seemed to re-
sent, even in his own heart her careless
coquetry. This love had begun on the
day when. halt drowned and wholly ter
rlfed, she had chung round his neck and
sobbed out her gratitude to him:
ooh, John how l do love you for COM
ing up Just now! The water was choking
me. wish you would always stay close
to me Just as long as 1 1--we" And John
had responded, with his cheek blushing
warm against her chilly wet one: 'I'll
never fail you when you want me, Pansey."
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 ia town beyond
the hill? It rang so loudly and sounded
so near that 1t broke through her reverie.
Her mind came back 10 her eyes, and
looked about, receiving shock that al.
most blinded her. For all the landscape
seemed in wh1rl, anu her visions reeleo
and fell like a city over an earthquake.
The slim birch trees thickened to dense
chestnuts; the branches of the pines ran