The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1882-11-09
] Boardine House Portraits.

Boarding House Portraits.
From the Texas siftings. ..s-,s.s.: - r3.s,y
This vision of female loneliness is the
hndlady's daughter. The picture rep
fesents her in the act of telling an eli
gib!e boarder to "step this way into the
parlor, SIR" where she will play tune
for him on the upright piano, and sing =
song which begins ard ends with the
line, ''Meet me where the flowerets
droop."t After: an eligible gentleman
boarler has listened to the hooking bird
sing one or twice, so to speak,
the landlady asks for private con-
sultation.. She tells him that under ordi-
nary circumstances, owing to her aristo-
cratic birth and associations, she would
| have to refuse him the hand of her
daughter, but that she is a mother, and
what mother will not sacrifice her feel
ings, her pride. her everything, rather
than blast her daughters happiness for
life? The eligible young man is sur
prised, and endeavors to explain, but,
with winning smile, she says she, too,
has once been young, and she will not
keep him from the side Of his inamorata
(she invariably drops into foreign Ian
SuStS7Co "ACA OAAC 40 COAAuCnGAdAJs AACI0
is a tableau, of course, but next day, and
forever afterward. the place that knew
that eligible young man knows HIM no
more. He has skipped.
This is the picture of a widow who
lives at our boarding house. She, accord
ing to her own account, has seen better
days. She tells how different things
were with her before the war, how many
negroes her husband owned. and what a
dreadful thing she would have con
sidered it in those days to have had to
live in 4 boarding house, and how pain
full to her it would have been to have
been compelled, as she is now, to dine at
the very Questionable hour Of o'clock.
She and our landlady exchange remin-
iscences of the past, and of the pedigrees
of their ancestors, at the table, when
strangers are present, and the very for
ward young man who sits at the foot OF
the table says that they often 60 off to-
gether into a closet and weep over the
landlady's family plate.
This is the boarder, but he is timid,
poor, and although ineligible, is deeply
in love with the. landlady's daughter,
notwithstanding his affection is not re-
ciprocated by either. He is never asked
into the parlor to listen to the vocal
music. If he hands up his cup for more
coffee the landlady scowls, and rattles
+. the silver spoons in the tray. He is
never asked it he will not please take
another piece of the breast of the chick
en-, or another piece Of pie. He is as
willing a little creature as ever lived,
but he is never asked to fix day for the
nnptials, although he occasionally screws
his courage nearly up to the sticking
point. He believes all the landlady SAYS
about her aristocratic antecedents, and
respects her accordingly. He has not q
particle of doubt but that the silver ware
is really solid. He also believes that the
curls and teeth of the landlady are gen.
uine. He is the mos: profitable board
,er she has, for the reason that being in
love he, does not eat much, while he
pays promptly, and even makes advanc-
MOTHER the advances to the latter be-
ing of a peculiar character. and yet he
is treated like a dog.