Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-05-27

rosy cneeKs, the brilliant SiaHCer, anu ehN
play full animation OF Jessy. In word, Jessy
was pretty girl, and Agnes was beauti-
full woman. OF these several facts both
sisters were of course perfectly aware I;
Jessy, because everybody told her SO, and
she must have been deaf to have escaped
the knowledge; Agnes, from some process
equally certain, but less direct Tor lew
would have ventured to take the liberty oil
addressing a personal compliment to one
evidently too proud to find pleasure In
anything so nearly resembling hattery as
praise.
Few, excepting her looking-glass and her
father, had ever told Agnes that sne was
handsome, and yet she was as con-
scious of her surprising beauty as Jessy
of her sparkling prettiness; and, perhaps
az a mere question of appearance and be-
comingness, there might have been as much
coduetry in the severe simplicity OF attire
and manner which distinguished one sister,
as in the elaborate adornment and innocent
showing off Of the other. There was, how
ever, between them exactly such real aud
internal difference OF taste and OF character
as the outward show served to indicate.
Both were true, gentle, good, and kind
but the elder was as much lottler IN mlnd
as in stature, was full of high pursuit and
noble purpose had abandoned drawing,
from feeling herself dissatisfied with her
own performances, as compared with tne
works of real artists reserved her musical
talent entirely for her domestic circle, De
cause she put too much of soul into that
delicious art to make it a mere amusement;
and was only saved from becoming poet
ess by her almost exclusive devotion to the
very great in poetry-to Wordsworth, to
Milton. and to Shakespeare. These tastes
she very wisely kept to her herself; but
they gave higher and tirmer tone to her
character and manners and more than one
peer, when seated at Mr.. Molesworth nos.
pitable table, has thought with himself
how well this beautiful daughter would be-
come coronet.
Marriage, however, seemed little IN her
thoughts Once or twice, indeed, her kind
father had pressed on her the brilliant
establishments that had offered-but her
sweet questions, Are you tired OF me z
"Do you wish me away had always
gone straight to his heart, and had put
aside for the moment the ambition of his
nature even for this his favorite child.
OF Jessy, with all her youthful attract
ton, he had always been less proud, per-
haps less fond. Besides, her destiny he
had long in his own mind considered as
decided. Charles Woodford, a poor rela-
ton, brought up by his kindness, and re-
Gently returned into his family from a
great office in London, was the person on
whom ne had long ago fixed for the hus
band of his youngest daughter, and for the
immediate partner and eventual successor
to his great and fourishiug business
choice that seemed fully justified by the
excellent conduct and remarkable talents
OF his orphan cousin, and by the apparently
good understanding and mutual affection
that existed between the young people.
This arrangement was the more agree
able to him, as, providing munihcently for
Jessy, it allowed him the privilege of max
ing, as in lawyer phrase he used to boast,
IAN elder son of Agnes, who would, by
this marriage of her younger sister, become
one of the richest heiresses OF the county.
He had, even in his own mind, elected her
future spouse, in the person of young
baronet who had lately been much at the
house, and in favor of whose expected ad-
dresses flor the proposal had not yet been
made-the gentleman had gone no farther
than attentions) he had determined to ex-
ert the paternal authority which had so
long lain dormant.
But in the affairs of love, as of all
others, man is born to disappointment.
" L'homnse propose, et Dieu dispose" is
never truer than in the great matter Of
matrimony. So found poor Mr.. Moles-
worth, who-Jessy having arrived at the
age of eighteenth, and Charles at that OF
two-and- twenty-offe his pretty daugh
ter and the lucrative partnership to his
penniness relation, and was petritied with
establishment and indignation to find the
connection very respectfully but very
firmly declined. The young man was very
much distressed and agitated che had
the highest respect for Miss Jessy but he
could not marry her-he loved another !"
And then he poured forth a confidence as
unexpected as it was undesired by his in
censed patron, who left him in undimin-
ished wrath and increased perplexity.
This interview had taken place immedi-
ately after breakfast and when the con-
ference was ended, the provoked father
sought bis daughters, who, happily uncon-
scious of all that had occurred, were anus
ing themselves in their splendid conserva-
tory-a scene always as becoming as it is
agreeable to youth and beauty. Jessy was
fitting about like butterfly amongst the
fragrant orange-trees and the bright gera-
NUNS. Agnes standing under superb
fuchsia that hung over large marble ba-
sin, her form and attitude, her white dress,
and the classical arrangement of her dark
hair, giving her the look of some nymph
or naiad, a rare relic of Grecian art. Jessy
was prattling gaily, as she wandered about,
of concert which they had attended the
evening before at the country town:
81 hate concerts !" said the pretty little
firt. "To sit bolt upright on hard bench
for four hours, between the same four peo-
pie, without the possibility of moving or
OF speaking to anybody, or Of anybody's
getting to us Oh how tiresome it is r'
81 saw Sir Edmund trying to slide
through the crowd to reach you," said
Agnes, little archly; "his presence
would, perhaps, have mitigated the evil.
But the barricade was too complete he
was forced to retreat, without accomplish.
ing his object"
Eyes, l assure you, he thought it very
tiresome /; he told me so when we were
coming out. And then the music - pur-
sued Jessy; "the noise that they call
nusicl Sir Edmund says that he likes no
music except my guitar, or flute on the
water; and like none except your play
ing on the organ, and singing Handel on
Sunday evening, or Charles Woodford's
reading Milton and bits of Hamlet"
"Do you call that music ?" asked Agnes,
laughing. "And yet, continued she, sit
is most truly SO, with his rich Pasta like
voice, and his fine sense of sound and to
you, who do not greatly love poetry for
its own sake, it is doubtless pleasure
much resembling in kind that of hearing
the most thrilling of melodies on the
noblest of instruments. l myself have felt
such a qualification in hearing that voice
recite the verses of Homer or of Sophocles
in the original Greek. Charles Woodford's
reading is music"
at is a music which you are neither of
you likely to hear again, interrupted Mr..
Wordsworth, advancing suddenly toward
L L i I T