Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1880-05-21
4 SLICE or BRE1D AND BETTER.

1 SLICE or BRE1D AND BUTT'ER.
Dorothy Dorothy Waldo! :" screamed Miss
Lorinda Cross ("cross by name and cross by
nature, the children-y.s, and many of the
grown-ups of the ueighborhood declared her
as she pounced upon the huge loaf Of bread
which She had taken from the oven and put
into the big stone crock only half an hour
ago, Just before she turned her stright-up-
aud down back on the kitchen, to stalk to the
garret after that idle hussy, Molly"-the
maid of -all-work- who had been twice rs
long as she ought to have been making the
beds there"
l said the huge loaf. should have said
half the huge loaf, for only that proportion
of the newly baked bread remained.
Dorothy Wal-do-o-o.' again screamed
Miss Cross III an ascending scale, with an
ominous tremolo on the last note.
YES, aunt, replied sweet, fresh young
voice and a pretty young girl came in from
the garden, with basket of cherry-red cur
rants in her hand.
tiny thing she was, with round, dimpled
rosy face, innocent child-like blue-gray eyes
and fair hair some short tresses of which had
escaped from the braid into which they had
been bound, and were making a delightful
use of their freedom by curling in the most
charming manner about the low frank brow
and little pink-tipped ears.
About sweet sixteen" q stranger would
have pronounced her; but Dolly, as her
youthful companions, much to the disgust of
her aunt Lorinda, called her, was older than
that by year and a half.
An orphan at the age of twelve, she had
been left TO the care of the only relative she
knew, her mothers elder sister-a woman
hard in speech and manners and anything
but soft in heart. This maiden lady soured
irrevocably on her twenty fourth birthday,
which should also have been her wedding
day but ut the very moment she WAS fasten-
ing the orange blossoms in her hair, had come
the news that her betrothed had eloped with
the girl-friend she had chosen for her bride
maid. Lornda tore the bridal wreath into
fragments, and scattered it to the winds !;
never mentioned the false pair from that hour,
banished forever all the womanly grace and
tenderness she had ever possessed (truth to
tell, she had never possessed much), and be-
came the hardest worker of her sex that ever
worked upon farm. In mans boots,
coat, and hat, early and hate, hot or cold wet
or dry, with set mouth lowering brow, and
silent lips, she toiled side by side with her
sturdy old father, until the day he was struck
down by the pitiless sun, and died few
hours after-ded Just in time to be saved the
pang of hearing that his youngest and favor
llG uhuRultT WIZ lllub Nv tue punt VI htdtL.
widowed and friendless, in Il far-away city.
Lorinda buried her father-if she wept for
him, none saw her-promoted man who
had been long in his employ to the position
she herself used to occupy, and started for
her sisters bedside. When she returned TO
Fernville again, she brought dear little fair
haired soft-eyed Dorothy with her, and
some of her neighbors fancied that since
that time she had been shade less stern
but if she had been, it was so slight shade
that it was almost impossible to perceive it.
True, she did less out-of-door work, and de-
voted part of the time thus saved to teaching
her niece to sew and cook aud churn, and
other like accomplishments; but never were
the lessons accompanied by an approving
smile or kindly word, much less loving
kiss. Even to the gentle, winning child, Lo-
rinda Cross remained a cold, stern woman.
But Dorothy, God bless her was SO sunny
in disposition that the stern ways and dark
face of her aunt could not cloud her young
life. And though shut out from that inhexi-
BILE woman's heart, she found the doors of all
other hearts vide open to her. The dogs,
the cats, the hens, the chickens, the horses,
the cows the calves, the very geese, regarded
her with alteration. The farm laborers
blessed her pretty face whenever she came
among them and as for Molly-pOor hard
worked Molly she would have kissed the
ground the little feet trod upon.
What wonder then, that Dan Howell, the
young surveyor, who lived half mile away,
in the old stone cottage, and whom she had
known from the very first day of her arrival
in Fernville (when he, then tall, bright
faced boy of fifteen, passing her aunts gate,
and seeing the sad-looking girl, in her black
Dress standing by it, silently offered her the
prettiest white rabbit she had ever seen-a
rabbit he had been coaxing Abner Brown for
a month past to sell him, and which now he
parted with, without another thought at
sight of those lovely fearful eyes and that
sweet wstful face what wonder l say that
he Thought of her by day. and dreamed of
her by nght?'
But to go back. Dorothy came smiling
into the kitchen, her lips and cheeks as red
as the currants she carried but the smile
faded away when she met her aunts irate
gaze.
"Did you cut this loaf and then leave it
here in this hot room to dry to a chip 2" de-
manded Miss Gross and then she added,
emphatipally, without waiting for an answer
'But of course you did No one else would
have dared to do it, And how dared you,
knowing that never allow bread to be cut
in my house until it is at least a day old 2"
II am very sorry, aunt" began Dolly
"but he looked so hungry I"
"He I" screamed her aunt, regarding her