Connecticut western news., 1881-04-06
PUSSY.
BY MARY KYLE DALLAS.


 There never was more proper person than Miss Martha Monckton. She had never done anything to shock people in all her life, and thought she never should; but man proposes, and the fates dispose and little d1d Miss Monckton know what she should come to, as, on Friday afternoon-Friday is an unlucky day-she sat at her window, working on crochet scrap bag, and watching the movements of her oppo- site neighbor, or rather of her opposite neighbours. youngest daughter, Miss Letitia Quirk.
 Miss Letitia, eighteen years old, black eyed, black-haired, rosy-cheeked, Ca forward looking girl," Miss Martha Monckton pronounced her, sat at an upper window, habited in pale pink muslin, with pink shell pin and ear rings, and pale-blue bow in her hair. Below, in his garden, her excellent papa pottered about, with large Panama hat on his bald head, expending all his energies of mind and body on two dozen tomatoes, pair of pumpkins and other products of his amateur farming opera tions. In the dining room window sat the young lady's mamma, counting napkins and cultivating large wrinkle between the eyes because napkins num- Der twenty-one, two and three had been used at dinner instead of napkins twenty four, five and six.
 Behind her, in the open pantry, the jams and jellies, the potted beef and canned salmon, stood in rows. All that was eatable or drinkable, all that was made of glass, silver, china, or linen, was evidently we'll ordered in that man. sion. But that piece of pink and white prettiness, the daughter of the house was it so with her 9'' ssszsz=ess.,-.. ...
 Miss Monckton thought not.
 'Td like to tell her ma," she said to herself, as she rubbed her glasses "but suppose shouldn't be thanked for it. "
 Then she looked again, and felt sure that Miss Letitia was talking panto- mime, with some use of the finger alphabet, to an unseen young man.
 It might-since the person was un- seen-have been a young woman but Miss Monckton felt sure it was not.
 "She's going through signs of putting on her hat and cloak, said she to her self. "Now she's pointing down stairs and shaking her head. She means her pa and ma. How disrespectful And I've had her in my Sunday school class. Now she's saying something with her fingers. Now she's kissing her hand. If ever see Letitia Quirk again, I'll talk to her. She's flirting with some one."
 An, if Miss Monckton had but known! Filtration is bad enough, but Letitia Quirk had gone still further. Had that elderly lady's glasses been stronger, or had she understood the finger alphabet better, she would have known that at that moment Letitia was arranging an elopement for that evening. On the roof of his parents residence, hidden behind chimney, Humphrey Horton, only son of Dr. Giles Horton, the prin- cipal physician of Strawberrytown, was at that instant, saying with his thumb and fingers:
 '" will be at the cross roads with & wagon at two o'clock tonight" It was certainly time that Letitia's parents left their cabbage and jam-pots to themselves for while, and took a little heed of their daughter.
 However, as we said, Miss Monckton did not guess theworst. She crocheted her scrap bag until it was time to put ID crimson TOW, and then laid it in he1 basket and went out into her garden te gather saucer full of strawberries.
 The tablewas already spread. Minty the old black woman who "did Mis-. Monckton's housework, had baked fou, tea biscuits and four small cup cakes
 the little china teapot held three cup
 of tea. It was all very pretty; no pov erty, no pinching. The whole room was bright with fancy work and Howe paintings, but it was lonely.
 1T wish," said Mist Mouckton, mild , ly, as she looked down into her tea cur , "I wish that somebody had happene
 to stop in"
 I am not sure that seeing Miss Monch ) ton every day, watching her solitar } spinster state, and half laughing at he1 ) half pitying her for her tiny housekeer . ing arrangements, had not helped Let l tia to the conclusion that she woul marry, with permission or otherwise , and since Dr. Horton and old MT. Ouir g had quarreled, would do without tE
 paternal blessing. Everybody kne
 that Miss Monckton might have Ina !. the Squire twenty-eight years before '- her mother had not hated him for [ ,, reason whatever.
 I. !. Letitia at this moment was packing small portmanteau and crying into it.
 for she was not naturally bad sort
 girl, indeed, who could leave her pa y ents' home in that way without a tea ? That solitary supper of Miss Martl t Monckton was soon dispatched, and sl i kor1r hor 1pn%%inov ~ o,,k ,,~~ <>., IL z .u ..l-