The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1881-07-30

L
beautiful! Here they sat down on big
rock; here they went leisurely strolling
up the path, and it was all of an hour
before they reached the door of the old
manor. "Now," she said, g / will in
troduce you to your aunts and uncles
and grandfathers, the pretty Priscilla in
her jonquil-blossom brocade, the staid
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"
every naturally" said Mr.. Maurice,
finding it impossible to enter the house
itself under his alias, ''for am not your
cousin Francis" .........
"WhatP NotP Not my cousin Fran
cisP Who, then, are you?" cried the
young beauty, in quick flame of indig-
nation, in which, to say truth, she looked
lovelier than ever. sd
81 am Mr.. Vincent Maurice"
And for all answer Miss Kate Rivers
clapped her hands upon her face and
ran away round the piazza, and behind
the lattices, and out of sight, as fast as
her feet could fly. .....
1t was not very promising BEGIN
ming, but lightning falls where it viii,
and Mr.. Vincent Maurice was very near
! ly in love. He came over in state next
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 q 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 a 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 a season of rapture, that
summer. 1t seemed to Kate that hap
piness could 90 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 as much so, if at
the end of month of it he had not
brought down Mr.. Godfrey, 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
quent urrer that, presently almost con-
slant. At the end of another month it
was not poetry and love that filled their
entire conversation, but Mr.. Vincent
Maurice was endeavoring to formulate
code of manners. Would she walk, and
not skipP would she talk, and not sing?
would she listen, and not laugh? would
she leave her pranks, and be seriousp
Was this perpetual merriment only for
the sake of displaying her dimples? Was
she going to wear her curls in her neck
foreverP For Heavens sake, what did
she mean by allowing these country
pumpkins to address her by her Chris
tan name-the woman who was going
to be his wifeP Would she always be a
rural hoyden, and never woman of the
world? Wasn't it time she cultivated
some repose of mannerp And did she
never intend to speak without blushingP
Under this pressure, Kate's gayety be-
came very forced thing, and half the
interim of his absences she spent in
tears. .
elf you object to my dimples, you are
taking fine way to smooth them OUT"
she cried.
"And a few such speeches as that"
he answered, "would make the loveliest
lips disgusting"
But there was spirit in her that made
it impossible yet to give up her individ-
uality. She would have done anything
under the sun to please him; BUTT would
have been somebody else, and not her.
self, had she done this-and then the
sight of him made her so happy, and the
moment she was happy, the old exuber-
ance of spirits would assert itself. But
the sight of him was getting to be not as
frequent as it had been, and she was
dropping under the neglect. la.
One early September afternoon, how
ever, he came, and came unexpectedly,
to fad her in field surrounded by
group of children, crowned, as they
were, with coronet of ripe grains and
straws, bearing strong resemblance to
the head-dresses of Madge Wild6re, and
tossing together with them the hay
cocks of the aftermath, in which they
had been tumbling. He stood looking
on in naughty disapproval. AS soon as
she could she disengaged herself from
the little people, and from her harvest
crown, and came to his side.
81 wonder you could leave such COM
partnership for mine at all, said he,