The Penn's Grove record., 1882-08-26
The Spirit of the Mist.

IQaUu lONtu ls A1ci ehdtOhSN Noto"6S
was placed in a niche far up the noun
tain side, and all around were cliff
and rocks, and snatches of billy
clearings, where her little flock of
sheep browsed, except when the snow
lay there in great drifts, as it did
throughout every winter.
People wondered that the dame
should have chosen such an isolated
spot for her abode, while the valley
lay beneath, with its green fields, Its
sparkling streams and varied wood
land, which cou d not fl lad footing in
the shallow soil above.
The reason that the dame loved the
place, with its summer gusts and sudden
-torms, its winter cold and driving
SHOWS, was that she was a native
Swiss, and all these reminded her OF
The land she left years and years be
fore.
Then she had been q hale young
matren, with a strong, honest, toll
some, good man, and three little ones
| after her, clinging to her skirts, as she
worked with willing heart and hands
to add comfort to the new home. All,
| me she had seen sorrow since, and
her husband and babes all lay in the
| c~hurch-yard, with slabs of granite
above their heads.
Now she was a withered, wrinkIed
| old woman, with hair lying white and
! smooth beneath her muslin cap, and
with rheumatic twinges that often
kept her from bobbing down the
mountain path on Sunday to the little
| church where she had gone for forty
years.
Only Bretta, her grsnd-niece lived
with her. A blithesome, neat.handed
lass was Bretta, but with a head as
light as her heart, and some vain no
tions in it, which gave Dame Brett
mann many a qualm of misgiving,
and called many Il reproof down upon
the young girl.
But Bretta was a willful mink, and
the DANES prece pts fell without i'm
preston on her mind. She would lin
ger in the village where she went to
sell the bur ches of produce gathered
from the garden, the great white-shell
ed eggs from the poultry yard, and the
rolls of yellow butter which the dame
gathered from the milk of her cow.
Never a Saturday but Bretta In her
neat short gown and white starched
sun bonnet with the heavy basket ON
her arm, trudged down the mountain
path, out across the valley to the viii
lsee houses ; where her patrons lived.
and never such an occasion but she
returned with a yard or two of gaudy
ribbon, a tinsel brooch, or some other
bit of finery TO adorn her person ut the
next days meeting, where she drot ped
a penny into the m~ission-box instead
of the shilling which the dame allowed
her.
All this troubled the good dame
sorely, and besides, she worried her
self into q fever of anxiety every night
when the girl went down to the noun
tain to drive the COW up from the pas
lures. The dusk would creep down
and the mists settle over the valley
before the bell about Crumple's mech
could be heard tinkling as she cam'
slowly up the path. 1t was no use Il
find fault with or to send her hour
earlier, for she only loitered the mor'
on the way. But Dame BreitmanI
need not have feared for her BIett'
was fleet aud sure of foot as
chamois, and knew every rock ant
crevice until she could tread then
safely in the darkest night.
MAKE haste, Bretta," the dam
would say, every evening when tn
girl tied her bonnet over her gloss.
brown hair, Get thee home before tn
twilight falls"
"Ay, granny" Bretta would re
spond, bounding away before othe
admoniiion could be given her.
And then she would sing snatche
of song, and turn from the path int
all sorts of out. of-the- way places, i
search Of gray lichens and red Gu
moss, or Chamber up the precipice
after glitterlng sparks, which she wa
sure acre precious jewels until sh
reached them, when they turned I
. pink or white pebbles in her hand. $
when the valley was reached, th
shadows would lie thick and dark
in every nook, and the mountain to
would be lost from sight by the mil
which hurg between. Then Brett,
who knew nothing of fear, would ca