The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1882-07-27

Most of I'll lives are Bitter-Sweet; but
If there is n period in it when the Bit
ter and sweet are superlatives, it is when
love takes possession of soul and body
as instruments whereon to play his
mighty preludes.
Margaret Townsend had lived alone
almost all her life, with her father, a
quiet student, loving but his daughter
his books, and so her life was full of
associations, but not of friends. None
of the bloom had been worn off her soul
by that playing at love called Irritation.
She had read, with a certain solemnity,
some old books wherein mention was
made of men who had died and done
other things for love; and she may have
had dreams OF the subject, but filmy and
shifting as dreams generally are.
Her father had taught her Greek, and
so ''she CHANGED upon the poets" and
their thoughts had given flavor to her
own. Some time before this had come
illness; it had seemed at one moment as
If she must cross the narrow bound of
time into the wide spaces of eternity; but
slowly death had let go his hold, and she
was we'll enough now to enjoy the
change to the quaint Devonshire fishing
village, perched in the rift of a headland
among ancestral trees and bowers of ash
and apple and pear.
1t is unique, this village, with its hun
dred steps leading down to the quay and
the shingly shore. The houses rise one
above the other, and the quaint rooms in
them are let in summer to visitors with
good walking powers. Its only inn is a
temple of bric-a-brac, and, in summer,
is crowded with pilgrims visiting n OF
the shrines of nature. In this seques-
tered solitude the father and daughter
n Dr. John Enderby were at present
the only strangers, and the young doc
tor, after two or three days, limped into
Margaret's sunlit sitting-room, into
which the light filtered through a net
fk of budding apple boughs. Here
would sit and watch Margaret at
Cork, or listen to- her as she read some
odd World book to her father, her fresh
young voice contrasting with the oft
tunes grabbed style, and as he thus
watched her she grew .inexpressibly
pleasant to him. Pleasant, and that was
all.
But to Margaret? Without one word
of warning, had come the browning
faection of her life. Heaven lies about
us in our infancy" then fades away.
But once more it lies about the man and
woman in the mellow time of youth with
a beauty that baby eyes never yet beheld
and earth borrows of this heavenly light.
Did ever such sunlight pass through the
rosy film of the apple blossoms that
nestled against the wall and made a
bower before Margaret's window? And
as for the blue bay cleaning below
was it really so cruel after all? Did SC
many husbands and fathers and sons lie
tossing tits depths. 1t looked so caress.
ing, washing the feet of the red cliffs
where the greenery crept down to NEE
it.
John was free to come and 90 as he
likedin the blossom-screened room, hold.
ing learned converse with MI. Town.
send, meeting his daughterin the woods,
now fully leafed, sometimes helping hel
over the rocks in search of anemones.
On fine evenings the three would sit on
the little semi-circular pier that inclosed
the ''quay pule" and watch the sunset
fading and the darkness nesting down
among the wooded headlands, and the
great evening star suddenly appearing
: in the blue above the paling primrose
that touched the water. After that the
sky would swiftly fill with stars, and the
moon would spring into the airy silence,
and her light would penetrate sky and
sea and ciiffhung village, the lights