Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1883-07-01
TOSS-UP FOR A BRIDE

Iioness, / want you"
"Ies, yes, Pm coming"
On the terrace of q suburban villa
hood boy. He was Is years of age,
serhaps, very chubby, with cheeks as
S ed as spples,a square figure and brown
yes. With proud sense Of sppro-
criation, he again shouted, "Lioness"
snd from a French window of the
house rushed little girl, some four
years younger than her playmate. She
was curiously different in appearance,
tall for her age, very thin and pale; her
brown eyes were too large, and her
eyebrows were too marked for beauty.
An immense quantity of chestnut hair
bad gained for her the name-which
Bob alone called her-of "Lioness."
How she liked to hear him call her
that! How proud and happy she felt
wheel he told her that some day she
B would be his little wife, and how honored
when he ordered her TO fetch and carry
for him, to bait his line, to field his
balls. She ran now across the lawn to
him, expecting the hearty embrace
with which he always met her. But
Something was wrong this morning,
for Bob's usually eontented face looked
tlncommOnly sulky.
al say, the mater has written to
auntie, and I'm to go home"
"Oh r-wlth a gasp. "When"
Tomorrow, first thing. Isn't it
bore"
The little girl did not answer. She
turned away, and forced back the ris-
$780, o.A ha hmm in
her throat, for Bob hated to see her
cry.
WELL" said Bob, anyhow, let's g.
off and fish, as it's the last day"
30 off the children started down the
hot, dusty road, across the field To the
little brook. "I4ioness" carried the rod
and the worms, and walked at pace
N which suited Master Bob, and was per-
fectly happy to do it for him. Her
heart was very sore about TIE parting
on the morrow; but, brave little soul,
: size put the thought away from her as
4 she listened to all the fine, grand and
s splendid things that Bob would do
when he was man and soldier, las
! all my people are"
Soon the two children were sitting
4 by the side Of the brook. Bob held the
rod to fish was his part of the work,
= To bait the hook and To take OFF the fish
!. ''L.ioness.'" No talking was allowed,
as il disturbed the fish, and so an hour
or two went by. Perfect silence reign
ed, broken only by an exclamation of
10Y when fish was landed, or one of
Impotence on the part of Bob when
"Lioness" did not do her work fast
enough. At last, when six or eight
shining little fish were fastened togeth-
CT. JeS a, sizing cupninglY inserted
said:
Bob, we lunch early to-day, and
uncle will he back; 50 | must not be
late, or aunt will be cross. think I'd
better 20. What time is it, please?
Bob looked at his watch and re-
ported.
ats about time went in, too; so
come alOng;n and, having wound up
his rod, the two children started to
walk home; Bob carrying the results of
his sport, with which to aStOnish any
pa.ser- by they might chance to meet,
and "Iioness" bearing the rod and
tackle.
As they crossed the field Bob re-
marked:
"Oh. | can't come this afternoon.
Auntie said | was TO go with her and
some old wretch, so it's goOd-by now"
IL wonder if We shall ever see each
other again." said "Lioness," some
what sentimentally.
ooh, l dare say we shall"
al don't know. You haven ever been
here before. You never spent your
holidays with your aunt till this sum-
mer. Then papa is coming back soon,
and shall go home; yol have never
been there IN all your life-and don't
see how you ever should"
"Well, when Pm grown up Fll come
and find you; and, remember you
have promised never to marry any
one but me, aud promise"-maguani-
mously-"lhat, if don't see anyone
like better, III marry you when fm
so"
"But shall be quite old-26-by that
time"
"well, if Pm 80, you won't be too old
for me; and if do marry anyone else
before that, III tell you what, "Fl let
you know"
BY this time the children had walk
ed down the road. Passing before a
stile. Bob said:
This is my nearest way over the
fields; 50 goodbye" and kissing his
companion the boy jumped over the
stile and ran home whistling.
And the girl? She stood, her two
hands clasped together, until his whist
ling had died away in the distance,
when, climbing the stile, she flung her
self upon the grass under the hedge,
and, burying her face in the hair he
admired, and which once, when it had
caught fire from bending over the can
die, he had put out with his hands,
sO6bed as if her heart would break.
Some tn miles from a BUSTING
town of worldwide fame as a great
market from which English goods are
sent to every land stood large country
house. IL was called Oakfield, and
was the home Of Alice Markham,
Bob's "LIioness." Here she lived with
her father, many miles from the small
country town where years before she
had spent her happy summer holi.
days.
II was q warm summer afternoon, and
Alice was gathering 3 nosegay to give
her white dress some little color, in
honor of O lawn-tennis party TO which
she and her father were going. Ii
would not have been easy to trace any
likeness between this tall AID lovely
girl and the wild, overgrown child OF
some ten summers earlier.
8 Her hair, then a mass of confusion,
was now gathered low against the
white neck, in what the society papers
of the time called Hebe knot. TIE
brown eyes and marked eyebrows
which had been too large for child
eight years old, lent great charm to
the bright complexion of a maiden o
eighteen.
Yes, Alice was lovely-not merely
pretty; and. if her outward appearance
was changed, there were other changes
to he noted also.
"Who would dare "fag" that stately
maiden? Who could imagine those
well-shaped white hands handling
worms and. fish? No; they might gath
or roses, but would scarcely bait line.
There had been times when she had
Hushed at the remembrance Of her
childish promise; but her life had been
a somewhat monotonous one. That
one summer still stood out in brilliant
colors among her many quiet holidays.