The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1880-03-11

perceptible.
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 murmur-
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 unrecog-
nized! She stood and breathed it a mo-
ment, then bent and looked searchingly
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 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 n
birch tree in the field; the well, with its
curb, pole and bucket, mossy and dank,
in the midst of the chip-strewn back
yard; shining tin milk cans drying on a
sunny bench outside the back door {;
lace curtains waving in the drawing
room windows, and transparent muslin
curtains huttering 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 ir )ning table
turned back on hinges and left great
chair for all but ironing days. The
town, but 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 violets
he found, holding her up to look into a
birds nest while the mother bird
chirped distressfuily from near tree,
and telling her such wonderful things
of birds and trees and flowers that he
had learned from books.
Picture followed picture--some 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, ,Jamio's dearest friend and play
! fellow; later, friend too and forever her
friend. An earnest, good boy, and an
earnest, good man--aS firm rs rock in
principles and character, and with some
thing 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 too
ready to smile and never had too much
to say. He was gentle, too. From the
time when, in her seventh year, he
lifted her, all wet and trembling, out Of
the brook into which she had fallen, and
carried her home in his arms, to theil
last interview, when she had laughingly
turned aside the declaration of love thai
| for the hundredth time he had attempted
to make, and left him with that hurt YET
patient look which she had so offer
caused his face to assume, in all thai
time not hasty or unkind word had ht
spoken to her, and never once had ht
neglected wish of hers or seemed tc
resent, even in his own heart, her care
less coquetry. This love had begun OF
the day when, halt drowned and wholly
terrified, she had clung round his necl
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" AnC
John had responded, with his cheel
blushing warm against her chilly we
one: "1'll never fail you when vol
want me, Pansy." And he never mac
failed her. A bell rang. Was it tn,
bell of the school-house hidden behint
the trees, or of one of the many churehe
in town beyond the hillp 1t rang 81
loudly and sounded so near that it brok
through her reverie. Her mind cam
back to her eyes, and looked about, re
ceiving a shock that almost blinded her
For all the landscape seemed in whirl
and her visions reeled and fell like
city over an earthquake. The slim bircl
trees thickened to dense chestnuts; tn
branches of the pines ran up the trunk
as an umbrella runs up in opening, ant
set themselves in a tuft high in the air
the wooden house with its long veran
das changed to palace with sculptures
stone balconies and crowned with tn
airy arches of a grand Ioggia and wher
a moment before the savage woods hal
climbed the hillside, white flood Q
water came falling down in foam
plunges, sprinkling the leaning flower
and the masks and the cupids as it fell
She saw the splendor of it all, and re
clearly that it seemed to be newly whis
pered in her ear: "All this will | Civ
thee if, falling down, thou wilt worshi
me-"
One bright, sweeping glance over til
skirts, she went swiftly toward tn
house. The first breakfast bell ha
ceased ringing. and the other would rim
in fifteen minutes. Reaching the house
she was told that a gentleman was wal
ing in the salon, for her.
"What an hour for n visit!" sh
thought, discontentedly. as she wer
trailing through the empty rooms to til
last. where a tall, broad -shouldere
man stood at a window looking out.
At sight of him the blood rushed I
her forehead. 81 am bewitchei to-da
| I am certainly bewitchedw ST
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 claspt
( to her bosom.
4 He turned at the light rustic of b,
} 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. a. hope am not il
4 truding"
How it happened she knew not, bat
5 sight of him all the old mischief al
malice woke in her heart. The inten