The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1881-07-22

, beautiful! Here they sat down on bi
rock; here they went leisurely strollin
up the path, and it was all of an hou
before they reached the door of the oil
manor. 'sNow," she said, "I will il
troduce you to your aunts and uncle
and grandfathers, the pretty Priscilla i
her jonquil-blossom brocade, the stat
old Mrs. Margaret in her black lace.
wonder what they will think of you
somehow you are not at all like what
thought my cousin Francis would be-
Very naturally" said Mr.. Maurice
finding it impossible to enter the hous
itself under his alias, ssfor am not you
cousin Francis
"What? Not? Not my cousin Fran
els? Who, then, are you?" cried tn
young beauty, in quick flame of indig
nation, in which, to say truth, she looke'
lovelier than ever.
81 am Mr.. Vincent Maurice"
| And for all answer Miss Kate River
clapped her hands upon her face anl
ran away round the piazza, and behint
the lattices, and out of sight, as fast a.
her feet could fly.
1t was not a very promising begin
ming, but lightning falls where it will
and Mr.. Vincent Maurice was very near
~ in love. He came over in state mex,
day, with his mother and Mrs. Stanton,
to make his peace; and perhaps because
he found the maiden refractory he be.
came all the more in earnest, and be.
fore week had passed it was all over
with him, and he felt life was not worth
living without Kate Rivers. And little
Kate, who had known not dozen men
in all her life, and never had a lover,
when her indignation had died out, had
all her defenses down, and thought so
| fine, so charming, so ideal, so perfect a
gentleman had never been completed on
this earth as Vincent Maurice was, and
returned his love with idolatry.
Well, it was season of rapture, that
summer. 1t seemed to Kate that hap
piness could 60 no further than sitting
by Vincent's side, rowing on the river
opposite him, riding through the forest
ways, with all the glorious green and
golden glooms and sun-lit spaces about
them. Happiness made her more of a
child than ever; she could hardly walk
for dancing, she could hardly speak for
singing; bird, bubble, any light and
airy thing, was less light and airy, less.
gay and sparkling, than she.
At first Mr.. Vincent Maurice found
this simply intoxicating; and perhaps it
would still have been az much so, if at
the end of month of it he had not
brought down Mr.. Godfrey, a peculiarly
staid and elegant counterpart of himself,
and all at once seen these gay, frank
ways with that friends Disappearing
eyes. The friends eyes supplied new
point of view. 1t was the first sensation
that he had had that she was not alto
gether faultless, but it was not the last.
When he came from the city at another
time, and found her trimming the chapel
for some festival, sitting on the top of
pair of steps, and wrapped round and
round by some of the rustic youths with
the long oak-leaf garland with which the
walls above were festooned till she
looked like dryad, when, seeing him,
she stood up, breaking all the green
bonds asunder, and sprang down the
stairs to his side, he met her with words
which, under the circumstances, were a |
sharp rebuke. 1t became rather fire.
quent after that, presently almost con-
slant. At the end of another month it |
was not poetry and love that filed their |
entire conversation, but Mr.. Vincent |
Maurice was endeavoring to formulate a |
code of manners. Would she walk, and |
lot skip? would she talk, and not sing?
would she listen, and not laugh? would
he leave her pranks, and be serious?
Was this perpetual merriment only for
he sake of displaying her dimples? Was
he going to wear her curls in her neck
orever? For Heavens sake, what did
he mean by allowing these country
to address her by her Chris
ian name-the woman who was going
o be his wifeP Would she always be a
ural hoyden, and never a woman of the
world? Wasn't it time she cultivated
ONE repose of manner? And did she
ever intend to speak without blushing?
Under this pressure, Kate's gayety be-
anne very forced thing, and half the
Interim of his absences she spent ia
ears.
elf you object to my dimples, you are
aking fine way to smooth them OUT"
be cried.
"And a few such speeches as that"
e answered, ''would make the loveliest
ps disgusting"
But there was spiritin her that made :,
impossible yet to give up her individ-
atty. She would have done ANYTHING !
nder the sun to please him; butt would
ave been somebody else, and not her.
IF, had she done this-and then the e
ght of him made her so happy, and the
loment she was happy, the old exuber- '
ace of spirits would assert itself. But Q
le sight of him was getting to be not as q
equent as it had been, and she was
'ooping underline neglect. p
One early September afternoon, how {
'er, he came, and came unexpectedly, "
find her in a field surrounded bv G
cup of children, crowned, as they "
ere, with coronet of ripe grains and g
raws, bearing strong resemblance to t
e head-dresses of Madge Wildfre, and d
ssing together with them the hay Il
cks of the aftermath, in which they OF
d been tumbling. He stood looking II
in naughty disapproval. As soon as "
could she disengaged herself from ia