Hand County press. (Miller, Dakota [S.D.]) 1882-1893, 1882-02-22

my enjoyment, every now and then. !
heard several people ask if it were true
that it was my twenty-ninth birthday
they did not know it was my twenty
ninth. And that odious Miss What's.
her-name actually said 1 looked very
well for that, very well, indeed. ]
should be glad, know, to see her look
half SO well, though she was, as she
says, baby when was almost grown
up. Twenty nine twenty-nine! Oh
wish was got sooldsp and, coyering
her facewitli 'her hands, she burst into
tears.
Let us pass over few months. The
neighbor's 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 q great deal
together, looking over papers and in
specting boundary lines but, contrary
to all expectation, the neighbor's son
turns out perverse, rs neighbors' sons
are apt to do, and begins a Irritation
with little girl of sixteen, as poor rs q
rat. His father frowned, Annabel's ia
ther frowned, and Annabel-she remem.
bered her twenty-nine years.
This state of things continued for
some months, in spite of various rcmon-
! strances on the part of one father and
polite speeches on the part of the other.
In vain title deeds were shown him-in
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 rs to
his intentions concerning Lady Annabel,
lie obstinately refused to enter into any
engagement with her whatsoever, alleg-
ing rs reason that she was too old to
be his wife, and adding, she might be
informed of his having said SO, for anght
he cared.
Two days after he put the finishing
stroke to his disobedience by clipping
with the before mentioned little girl OF
Is.
All this was conveyed to The Lady
Annabel by her offended aud indignant
father. And now, indeed, was she un-
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 A.! God knows my love for him may
be older than it was, bnt it is only the
stronger, the more enduring. Cruel, cruel
Jasper, to cast mo off thus; and for
what ?-beeause am 80 Surely / am
the same that ! have always been. And
he approached 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
1t was then as it is now, as it always
has been and always will be--man
speaks, and woman abides by it. The
Lady Anuabel pined, and grieved and
wept in secret; and talked and laughed
and jested about the elopeTent III pub
lie; and for a while no one knew that
hers was a heavy-laden heart.
Il 81 af ,,
the world. In the Lady Annahel's case
they did a great deal. They took all
the luster from her bright eyes; they
washed away the color from her checks,
and rolling down they wore for them
selves channels in her smooth skin, so
that by her 30th 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 cdious little lady, as
Lady Annabel had called her n year ago,
was heard to say-"I did think she
wore very well, but don't think SO
now. To be sure, poor thing, she is
getting on pretty we'll"
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 ] was
%. have no such feelings now. JAS
per was right when he said / yas too
old for him. How would my careworn,
sorrowful face look in company with his
blooming appearancep They talked of
a ball for to-night-how my heart |
shrank from such a thing 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 30 soon? Per-
haps not-but they are gone. And what
is left to me2 A dull, joyless life of re-
greet"
But she was wrong-she was not quite |
as old az she thought. A few years
possed away. Her violent sorrow be-
came changed by degrees into melan-
choly, aud then into a gravity. They |
rarely saw her laugh, but she was
very often cheerful. She had put away
her ornaments-her iewels--it is true,
but her attire was always becoming and
elegant. Her fathers dwelling contin-
ned TO be the resort of his numerous
friends. She mingled with them but
seldom, and smiled when the odious lit
A, -, -. Mrs Gnnaho1v falla Il