The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1883-03-31
TIE LIFE eHE SAVED.

| Bessie Barton s cheek. and FLASHED up
on the faded ingram carpet of thedreary
| tireless hall bedroom, in which she sal
/ upon her own shabby little trunk, the
| red shawl drawn tightly around her fol
/ warmth's sake, the roar and rattle OF
the avenue below rising up to her eal
| like the howl of distant demon.
For Bessie was a country girl, and
| better acquainted with the gurgle o1
| aldel-shaded brooks and the hum OF
| bees than the rush of omnibus wheels
and the whizz of trains over the elevated
| roads
Bessie's visit to New York was PROV
ing rather disappointment.
She had committed the not unnatural
error of taking her city cousins entirely
| at their word when, after Il month al
Bluebell Farm, they had invited her to
come and see them in the city.
So she had INDUCED in a new violet
cashmere, made by the village dress
| maker, u little straw hat with wreath
of daisies and new boots and gloves and
taken the eight clock train to the city
one fine morning.
But Mrs. Milton Munger's house, in
stead of the elegant mansion on Fifth
Avenue, which she had limited at, was a
big domicile over a shoe store, where
she kept boarders, and expended most
of the profits in SNOWY dresses for her
self and her two daughters. Medora and
Adeliza
And she stared blankly enough at Bes-
sic Barton when that dimpled young
damsel presented herself smilingly at
the door.
At first she could scarcely recall hel
face, but presently she remembered who
it was.
..Ah.'' said she, ''its Cousin Barton )
girl from Bluebell Farm, isn't it? Deal
me, what on earth has brought you
here?''
s.NIedora and Adeliza asked me TO re-
turn their visit, said Bessie. feeling as
if her heart was plunged into cold
bath. And-and didn't know that you
kept n boarding house,
1T isn't a boarding-house," sharply
retorted Mrs. Munger. IF | choose to
share my expenses with "a few refined
friends, | don't know that my establish
ment need to be called abOarding-house.
But I'll call the girls. Medorai Adeliza!
where are you?"
Metlcra Munger emerged from the
parior where she had been hammerin9
away on wretched old skeleton of a
piano.
Adeliza came up from the uncongenial
occupation of polishing red apples for
dessert in IA mouldy smelling dining
room where the boarders ate their din
ner by gaslight, and there issued forth
a Whit of blackbeetles every time the
cupboard doors were opened
And together they escorted their cous-
in Bessie up to the chilly hall bedroom,
whose atmosphere seemed to strike like
8 frozen k ife TO her heart.
'.Oh. of course we re glad to see you,
said MeClora, adjusting the friZzes be-
fore the misty little looking glass framed
i'm cherry wood But it unlucky that
Won should have come Just now, when
the house is so full, and the waitress
has gone, and there's such a deal to
do. But you can sleep with me and
Liza, in the dark room off the linen
closet. and I dare say we'll get along
very comfortably.
But this style of speech was SO differ
cnt from the gushing cordially display
ed some three months before at the
| Bluebell Farm by these ladies, that Bes-
| sic Barton could scarcely believe her
ears.
| And she was just making up her mind
| to propose return to the country after
1 three days of chrysalis existence in the
| dark dining-room and gloomy back
| parlor, which were so widely different
| from her pictured anticipations of CITY
| life, when Mrs, Munger broke out with
| a totally unexpected proposition.
| "Tll tell you what. Bessie" said she,
''I' m troubled for help just now, and il
you II stay and lend a hand with the
glass and china. and DESERT know
! You We got good taste about such things.
for your table out at the farm was al
ways as pretty as a picture-Fll give
| yon dollar a week.
And to the little country damsel who
| had never earned a penny of her own, q
dollar week appeared like wealth, al
though this realisation of the New York
dream seemed so unlike her fancies OF
Fifth Avenue, the Central Park, the
| glitter of Broadway, and the kaleido-
scone spIendors of the Academy of De
sign.
Moreover, after all that had been said
throughout the simple country neigh
borhood about her visit to the city, she
was little ashamed to come back at a
week s end with the confession that her
aunt hadn't been especially glad TO see
| her.
| So she acquiesced in Aunt Munger g
project and remained, although she was
a little afraid of the boarders.
There was the fat man with the flow
ing coral-colored beard, who was a
newspaper editor-and the passee wild
ow who had the best front room, and
was always sending messages to the
people overhead not TO tread heavily, as
she had the nervous headache-and the
two moustached young men who had
something TO do with the brokering bus
| mess in Wall street-and the stout
couple who went daily to agymnaslum'
and walked for exercise SO many hours
per diem. And there was the young
lady with the curls who taught school,
and the genteel dressmaker who had
the use OF the par1ors to see her COM
pany in, and the saucy pretty "sales
lady who always dressed SO elegantly,
and the shy youth who was q book
keeper somewhere on a starvation sal
airy, and whom nobody noticed They
were all studies of character TO little
Bessie Barton. She looked at them as
she might have looked at so many stat