The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1883-10-25

door by gentle tap wnicn deceived
her into thinking it was some one come
with sewing for her to do. But when
the flowers fell down, and she found no
one at the threshold, she stopped and
picked up the nosegay with strange
sensation of surprised happiness. She
fancied some one had had kind thought
| for her, and expressed it in this way.
But when she stopped with difficulty
and picked up the flowers, she dis
covered the imposition too late. The
pepper went into her nose and eyes and
convulsed her.
What was worse than that was the
bitter disappointment of finding what
seemed such a pretty gift only ma
licious jest.
She rushed out into the old patch of
shrubbery she called her garden, to
find the offender. Peggy had hidden
behind a bush, expecting the result
with great enjoyment. But, when
Dame Gurton appeared, she was over
come with fright.
The old woman was gasping for
breath, her eyes were streaming; she
shook her fist in the air with rage, and
sobs of modification interrupted her
outcries.
Peggy fled home as fast as she could
60 feeling that she had been very
wicked. She could hardly bear to face
her mother. Yet how could her mother
ever know what she had done?
This reflection, however, didn't con-
sole her; and, before she had said her
prayers that night, she had confessed
the whole story.
Mrs. Winslow took Peggy to the old
mill the very next morning to tell Dame
Gurton how sorry they both were that
such cruel and wanton thing should
have been done.
They found old Nelly very gentle.
She looked at Peggy long while, then
sighed and said:
You are like me when l was
young. But you will change, you will
change. God grant You may not have
such lesson as L did"
"What was that?" asked Mrs. Win
slow.
But Dame Gurton would say nothing
more.
After that, though, she allowed Mrs.
Winslow and Peggy to visit and be-
friend her.
1t was only few weeks later that old
Nelly fell i'll, and her case soon became
so serious that it was plain she could
not recover. When she was perfectly
sure that she must die. she asked Mrs
Winslow, who was with her, to send for
Peggy.
Il have something to tell you both, "
she said. But no one else shall hear,
and if the doctor comes, he must wait
till | have done
Then, after Peggy had come and
taken her place beside the bed, the dy-
ing woman began.
81 am glad am going to tell it," she
said, "for my whole life has been black
ened by keeping it to myself. 1t would
have been awful TO die with that secret
in my breast.
"Oh, you may say it was little thing
to feel so about; but that was what L
said to myself all the time, and was
wrong! / only did it for fun, just for
fun, as you put pepper in those flowers,
my little Peggy. But see what it did
to me afterward That wasn't for fun,
you may be sure"
She paused, and her distracted gaze
and suffering face seemed to show that
she was looking back over her life.
Then she went Oh
1T was the waste-pipe in the mill
dam, and kept thinking how funny it
would be, and how Mr.. Gurton would
stare, if l could let all the water out
before he knew it. L thought it was
all right, because VIII made love to me
then, and / didn't dream of doing any
harm to them that were like to be so
near and dear TO me. SO | went all
alone and secret, and | could work at
1t without being seen, because there
were bushes growing close around it.
At last | got the plug cut, and then /
crept away and hurried home. Mr..
Gurton-he was the miller, you know
was away. But the water got down
so it wouldn't run over the top and the
race was shut off, so it pushed against
the dam faster than the plug-hole
would let it run out, and the whole
thing went and the water was lost
II didn't think even then but what il
could be fixed, though / was awful
scared. But you know, Mrs. Winslow,
what happened to Wills father, and
then to mine" Here she explained to
Peggy what has bee. told above
"And wher 1 found a. that mischief
had been done and now people felt, /
was afraid. And l durstn't tell VIII.
for fear he'd hate me. And Inever told
anybody.
Il thought it couldn't help things any
to tell, now the harm had been done,
and so / held my tongue. But when
my husband died, and / thought how
he was gone from me perhaps forever,
and didn't know it was THAT drove his
Poor father crazy, and so led to my own
fathers death-oh, then, 1 tell you, 1
saw how wrong had been to keep Sc
cret about it
"Just think! L had ruined miller
Gurton, and lost father, mother and
husband, all through letting out the
pond and yet l had been taking their
love and pretending to be fit for it, all
the time.
so l had done two wrong things in.
stead of one. And all these years I've
sat and looked at the place where the
pond was, and the old happiness that
used to be in my heart withered away
| like tho vater-nIants that 11sod IN grow