Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1882-06-02
MISS MARY DUNLAP.

BY HARRIET PRESCOTT sPOFFORD.
There were two things patent concern
ing Miss Mary Dunlap-one that she was
an exceedingly pretty glrl; the other that
she was as arrant a coquette as ever be-
witched a man. She had hair whose loose
locks gilded white forehead, but whose
heavy masses glistened like fawn tinted
satin: she had great black lasbed blue eyes
with an enchanting way of glanclng under
:heir housekeeping fringe; her teeth
we're as even as the kernels of milk corn :;
her features fine as if chlselled in ivory !;
her dimples, her smile, the rose and white
of her skin we're lovely and innocent as
any babes and the depth of her guile
there was no fathoming. Not that it was
very guilty guile; it was but trivial sort
after all. 1t consisted only in making her
self charming; and there were even those
who said she couldn It help it if she would
She felt an interest in everybody feeling
it, she showed it and if people chose to
think it meant more than it did, that was
their fault and not hers. And there was
uo VoA why AOcAoOA, CuOy oolu, why MI .
Popison should suppose when half the
lovely women of an older generation had
refused his hand, that this spoiled darling
meant anything but commiseration by
her tender looks of sympathy as he told
his g.iefs, after bringing her great punches
of red roses at thirty cents apiece.
The fact was, that it pleased her that
Mr.. Popison, who had once admired her
tyrannical younger aunts, should now ad-
mire her. Then it did no harm to have
James Macarthur see that she could step
into pair of sumptuous shoes, and cross
the threshold of the splendid old Popison
mansion over the river: and time flew but
slowly and the affair amused her and it
wouldn't hurt poor Mr.. Popison, who was
used to that sort of thing.
1t was gay house, the Dunlap. All the
family elements combined there There
were two grandmothers, a mother and
father, aunts on both sides, two or three
cousins, and Mary Dunlap and her sisters
and friends and lovers going and coming
and the time was heavy to no one but
Mary, and might have not been to her had
James Macarthur had the wit to see what
some others thought they saw.
But James Macarthur, a handsome.
housekeeping fellow, with good business
and some ambition, had his eyes sufficient
ly wide open. Mary Dunlap had touched
his heart as deeply as he dared to let her,
for ne hesitated about marrying for love
when he might marry for love and money
too, and Mary would have little and he
hesitated, too, about marrying girl with
whom everybody else was in love. "a CO.
quette, said the young Macarthur, ''gives
her husband little peace" and he had diff
ferent visions. Nevertheless the girl
could not brush him with her garment
without sending thrills through him, and
he had only to look that way in church
and see the rosy edge OF her velvet cheek
beyond the pillar to feel the. color surge
all over his own face, and the sudden
sound of her voice would at any Cime
make his heart cease beating for the frac-
tion of second. Still he hesitated.
Not so Mr.. Popison. Heknew what he
wanted, and he meant to have it. 1t is
true that he had thought so in more than
one instance before, but that, he said, was
in his green and callow days, aad if his
hand had been refused, he was glad of it.
as that left it free to offer Mary Dun
lap whom he had known since she
was baby and had given her her first
gibralters, and her last butter-seotches :;
she had spent his pennies and sat on his
knee and combed his hair with her tipv
fingers, and kissed his mouth with her
sweet innocent lips he had been her con-
fidant, aud had known every thought OF
her pure heart; and then she had gone