The Russellville Democrat., 1880-12-23

Yet she was worth looking at; there are few people of such clear beauty as hers. 1 remember, her especially one morning, as we were all on the piazza when the old mail coach came numbering in from the post town five or six miles away. She had been tossing Charlotte's baby, who had clutched her long dusky brown hair and pulled it all about her face, and the coils were streaming down her white gown, and as she looked up, laughing and dimpiing, sine saw Mir. Raymonde climbing down from the coach box, and such red shot over her cheeks and through her smile, such light into her great hazel eyes, as she stood one in- stant transfixed under his gaze, and then dropped the baby into Charlotte's lap, and moved away so quickly that it seem cd to me had been dreaming, and l had not really seen Marion at all, but q vision of her.
 It was the same evening that there was shooting in the long meadow, when Ma rion, coming across the field with MT. Munson and Sallie, stopped as they did, at the target one moment to observe the character of the shots, just as Raymonde who had come in from the shore with bag of birds, and looking like a brigand, in his high boots and slouched hat--had been called and compelled to add his shot to the score, and had drawn his gun to his shoulder Maybank shouted to Mir. Munson, and he and his party were hurrying up the field and out of the way, when, like a thunderbolt from the blue sky, Mir. Raymonde's gun went of. With single bound, as it seemed, he was by Marion's side.
 'sAre you hurt" he cried. By heav- ensl There is another ball left for me if you arelp
 But Marion, with the same nasty red staining her cheeks for the second time since had known her, had started back and, conscious that all eyes were on them, laughing, held up the end of the little lock of hair the ball had sheared. q heard it whistle" she said.
 "How tragedy treads on our heels this summerp exclaimed Sallie.
 But we escape him." said Marion, lightly, and passed on, as Raymonde stepped aside, stepping presently to ca ress the spaniel that, by jumping on Ray monde as he stood waiting had been a cause of possible disaster. There was no more shooting that evening, but l saw who caught and hid the lock of hair the bullet cut away.
 Day by day went by, and Marion swept along with the same indifferent beauty, dancing and driving, and bowling, and rowing, and strolling with this one and the other, and never observing Ray mondes existence other than when sometimes that rcbellious red again flushed her cheeks, or she laughed more gaily than usual when she felt rather than saw his presence. Meantime all Raymonde's old-time sweetness went; he had neither smiles nor interest for any; he no longer paused to look over my sketching board, with the old pleasant words, although he sometimes caught Charlotte's baby and tossed 1t in the air, if the nurse went by with it as he sat on the smoking piazza with his cigar The children missed him in the bathing cove, and the amateur players in the hall; and gossipers on the porches were busy with him, you may be sure. But he gave no sign of leaving. I had kept my observa- tions to myself, and, except to think him stony-hearted for being so untouched by the 1ovliness of the woman whose life he had saved, and then again so nearly taken, as to make no more advances, l had allowed them as little thought as possible; al no one else ever coupled his name with Marion's, even in thought, suppose, and so the gossipers were none the wiser. l, to bs sula, had meyer bad any experience in love affairs but I knew enough to mind my own business, although 1 was often sorely tempted to give Raymonde piece of my mind, and MaiiGn r dfeadful taking down,
 Suddenly, in the midst of the pleasur- ing, we awoke one day to find that there had been frost; and although, as the sun mounted, it was still warm and genial, everybody felt that summer and pleasuring were at an end. The luggage came down as if it had wings, and the air, so to say, vas full Qf flNiHg trunks. A few, however, yet remained, and among them Mrs, Mercer and her suite, she awaiting her husband and the cluster of more intimate friends. Marion app peared to be in fever to get away; but Ravmonde said to me that he should stay as long as sha house was open, for he had always enjoyed the Indian sum- mer by the sea. And he went on paint ing in the morning and gunning in the afternoon, some one of oihet or the gem tlemen going with him, and we could hear the puff of their rifles echoing away in the fairy music all along the shore.
 It was the most perfect day that last one we went out, and gont, "a t ohabced, alone. All the distant marshes and woody thickets were blazing with gold and carmine under the soffest violet haze, and a silver sheen hung over the sea like a stretch of gauge, behind or through which phantom sails slipped by. For time we heard the rifle here and there, at least we might have heard it; did; and then there was pack peddler with smuggled faces and shawls at the door, and we were so occupied in trying to gat something for nothing, with the true fenainine instinct, too, In some of uq for smuggling, that sunset was on us ip no time, its wide blush dying out pres ently in graveness and mist that before we rose from the tea table had settled over everything like rain, and through which no star was to be seen.
 "'Rain on the flood, nothing but scud;
 lsain or the ebb, es well 20 to bed " quoted Mr. Munson. its going to be storm of quality if that holds good"
 It was gloomy evening, and after the landlady assured us that we were going to have the equinoctial, as we should see when the tide turned, and it still rained and blew, and we might then expect glorious surf, we went to our rooms aariy, and were surprised to hear, when we awoke next day to find q wild gale blow ing with gusts of sleety rain, that Mir. Raymonde had not returned However, I n .l.Aa l..