Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1882-07-02

says, baby when was almost grown
up. Twenty-Five twenty-nine! Oh!
I wish I was not so old !" and, covering
her face with her hands, she burst into
tears.
Let us pass over few months. The
neighbours long-expected son has come
home, and Lady Annabel is in state of
anxiety, for her heart is true to her first
love, despite her twenty-nine years. Her
father and his neighbor are great deal
together, looking over papers and in
speeding boundary lines but, contrary
to all expectation, the neighbours son
turns out perverse, as neighbors' sons
are apt to do, and begins Irritation
with little girl of sixteen, as poor as a
rat. His father frowned, Annabel's ia.
ther frowned, and Annabel-sherem em-
bered her twenty-nine years.
This state of things continued for
some months, in spite of various remon-
strances on the part of one father and
polite speeches on the part of the other.
In vain title deeds were shown HMM
vain the contiguous estates were talked
over and walked over. Jasper remained
immovable.
At last, upon being formally and rig
orously appealed to by his father as to
his intentions concerning Lady Annabel,
he obstinately refused to enter into any
engagement with her whatsoever, alleg-
ing as reason that she was too old to
be his wife, and adding, she might be
informed of his having said so, for aught
he cared.
Two days after he put the finishing
stroke to his disobedience by clipping
with the before mentioned little girl of
16.
All this was conveyed to the Lady
Annabel by her offended and indignant
father. And now, indeed, was she I'M
happy-for she really loved this man,
and knew herself to have been loved by
him SOME years before.
"Too old for him, indeed too old for
him God knows my love for him may
be older than it was, but it is only the
stronger, the more enduring. Cruel, cruel
Jasper, to cast me off thus and for
what ?-because am 90! Surely I am
the same that have always been. And
he reproached me with the years that
have taken away none of my beauty (;
he might as well lay to my charge the
age that passed before was born"
But so it was, in spite of all her grief.
It was then as it is now, as it always
has been and always will be-man
speaks, and woman abides by it. The
Lady Annabel pinned, and grieved and
wept in secret; and talked and laughed
and tested about the elopement In pub
lie; and for while no one knew that
hers was heavy-laden heart
Tears do great deal of mischief in
the world. In the Lady Annabel's case
they did great deal. They took all
the luster from her bright eyes they
washed away the color from her cheeks,
and rolling down they wore for them
selves channels in her smooth skin, SO
that by her Both birthday people began
to say, "the Lady Annabel is very
much faded -"the Lady Annabel Is
not quite SO young as she was and
one little lady, the odious little lady, as
Lady Annabel had called her year ago,
was heard to say-"I did think she
wore very well, but I don't think SO
now. To be sure, poor thing, she Is
getting on pretty wen.'
This time the Lady Annabel entreat-
ed her father to omit the usual merry
making. She spent the day alone in
her own room.
"Thirty years old! How it dis
tressed me year ago to think I was
%. I have no such feelings now. JAS
per was right when he said I was too
old for him. How would my careworn,
sorrowful face look in company with his
blooming appearance? They talked of
q ball for to-night-how my heart
shrank from such thing I at a ball
Moths dimly-lighted room suits me
better. Jasper was right. But then, if
he had still loved me, would my youth
and beauty have gone so soon? Per-
haps not-but they are gone. And what
is left to me? A dull, joyless life of re-
greet"
But she was wrong-she was not quite
as old as she thought. A few years
passed away. Her violent sorrow be-
came changed by degrees into melan-
choly, and then into a gravity. They
rarely saw her laugh, but she was
very often cheerful. She had put away
her ornaments-her jewels-it is true,
but her attire was always becoming and
elegant. Her fathers dwelling contin-
ued to be the resort of his numerous
friends. She mingled with them but
seldom, and smiled when the odious lit
tie lady, now Mrs. Somebody, talked
about old maids. Meanwhile Jasper was
never heard of-his angry father having