Middletown transcript., 1882-02-24
A LITTLE 4STHETE.
BY HARRIET PRESCOTT sPoFFoR1

Aunt Eunice was certainly impracti-
cable. If you thought you had her
here, up she sprang like jack-in-the-
box there, and you never knew what to
expect from one with a point of view
differing from that of almost allaround
her. There was, to be sure, one thing
you had a right to expect, and only
one, and that was always and every
where Of late certain and complete dis
appreciation of Rosalie's proceedings
Rosalie she had been christened, but
she had taken to spelling it 4" Rosalys'
at the time she learned the Kensington
stitch, subscribed to Punch for the
simple purpose Of cutting her gowns,
since no dressmaker could do it, on the
model of those of Mr.. Du Maurier's
ladies there, and dug up all her sweet
briers and lemon-yeFbenas for the sake
Of planting whole beds Of sunfoYers.
!" can't understand what it means, y
she moaned. Il had my seeds from
the Agricultural Bureau in Washing
ton, and l planted a pound of them,
and there have only two come up. 1
do believe-I do believe-' And she
looked at Joe as if what she believed
was that he pulled them up as fast as
they sprouted.
"Don't look at me, Rosa," said
Cousin Joe "look at the birds.'' And
while they are watching saucy robin
tug at the stem Of one of the springing
plants that he might get the seed at its
root, I will tell you that Joe wasn't her
cousin really: l never allow any of
my heroes and heroines to be cousins
they We're step-cousins, so to say, and
by no means of any blood relation; but
that had never hindered the warmest
sort of intimacy till Rosalys began to
spell her name in old text, and declare
she could see no absurdity in the young
aesthetics declaration that he dined off
a lily, that it merely meant the salts
flying sense Of beauty in which the ban
quoting of the soul dulled the hunger
Of the body, and that Nj. Rivas said
the sense of color was something quite
as actual as the sense that enjoys
chop, and SO maunder on till Aunt
Eunice put her fingers in her ears, and
told Rosalys if she didn't become quiet
she should have to shake her. Upon
which Rosalys would walk off singing
to herself from Oscar Wilde
Her gold hair fell on the wall of gold
Like the delicate gossamer tangles spun
4 On the FURNISHED disk of the marigold
Or the sunf1ower turning to meet the sun
When the gloom ofthe jealous night is done,
And the spear OF the lily is aureoled"
= am worried about her, cried
Aunt Eunice. "Is she really becoming
an idiot 2''
"Not she, Aunt Eunice I" said Joe,
laughing. "It takes world of sense
to make that sort of idiocy."
Well, she doesn't do useful thing
any longer, and she used to be invalu-
able. 1t is all along of that painting
fellow Rivas. Ever since he and his
moon-struck sister there came back,
she has been bewitched. I'll give him
a piece Of my mind y And for the
time being that pleasant prospect i'm
parted comfort to Aunt Eunice.
= Do you really mean to go over to
the enemy, Rosa P'' said Joe, overtaking
the pretty mink with his long stride
presently. "Have you taken out your
naturalization papers in the ffeshly
school? And do you find pleasure in
the thought Of slipping over our own
graves as two snakes, or creeping
through hot jungles as two tigers
What is the verse you read so often
How my heart leaps up
10 think OF that grand living after death
IN Deast, and bird, and hower"'
" mean to do just as 1 please, Joe,
and to let you do the same,'' was the
tart reply.
" Indeed you do not for if you did,
l should take you away from all this
nonsense that you wouldn't know you
were on the same planet" But Rosa
had gone without any more words, and
left him watching her down the garden
aisle, with her scant blue robes cling
ing about her pretty feet, and her scarf
catching on every thorn, to where
young Rivas sat sketching on the old
stone wall at the garden foot, wearing
his bicycle dress, whose knee-breeches
and jacket where perhaps something as
near the Old Florentlne as he dared to
approach in these parallels. Joe could
not but acknowledge that the dark
young artist, 1.-THE and slender, and the
sylph hurrying under the arched path
way, with her long unbraided brown
hair streaming round her and away i'll
the wind, made a pleasant picture.