The daily Cairo bulletin. (Cairo, Ill.) 1878-1???, 1884-05-01
AUNT ABBY'S GUESTS.

Mary Miller came home from the
Hunsden factory, upon that April even
ing, with light, quick step.
The sky was all pale amber glow;
the frogs were croaking in the long,
damp grass of the great expanse of
common that skirts that suburb of
Leeds; the gorse was golden with its
earliest banners of blossom; and as she
tripped along, Mary found tuft of
violets, halt-hidden under drift of
dead leaves-pale, purple, scentlcss
blossoms!
THE first violcts always bring good
luck with them, she whispered to her.
self, as she pinned them into the bosom
of her simple, homemade dress of cot
ton.
Home" was scarcely the ideal real
ization of that poetic word to our fac
tory girl She and her mother lived
in the upper-half Of a shabby, unpaint-
ed, tumble-down house, in the out
skirts of the great Yorkshire manufac-
turing town, with the blacksmith $
scolding wife and seven riotous chill
dren downstairs, and one-half of n
trampled-down backyard by way of
garden, where nothing ever grew but
burdocks, nettles, and Mrs. Mugs
long-legged fowls.
But Mrs. Miller, who had been a
school-teacher once, and still retained
somewhat of the refinement other early
education, had the tea ready, with
shaded lamp and bunch of yellow
primroses on the table ready for Mary
TO come home.
Good news, mother!" the girl cried
lightly. THE Meadow Farm is to be
let! Mother, we must take it. >
Mrs. Miller looked obviously at the
bright eager face, with its blue-gray
eyes and fringes Of yellow hair.
Can we afford it, daughter she
said slowly. "A whole house and n
farm of twenty acres?'
ut isn't such Il very large house,
mother!n pleaded Mary, as she laid the
bunch of yiolets in her mothers lap
mot so many more rooms than we
have here. And we could keep two
cows, and could sell milk and butter,
and spring chickens and eggs. And
only think, mother, how delightful it
would be to have a home all to ourselves,
where we couldn't hear Mrs. Mugs
boxing Bobby's ears, or Helen Shrek
inc with the toothachc, And little
garden, mother, where we could have
peonies and hollyhocks, and all those
lovely, old-fashioned flowers that youl
soul delights in,'
Mrs. Miller's pale, mild face soft
ened.
at would be great temptation
Mary she said.
1T is = month now since old Mrs
Dabney died" said Mary. "And they
say that her daughter in London, anC
her son, who has the large cutlery shol
in Sheffield, dcspise the old farm, witt
its one-story house and its old red barn
So il is to be let And so cheap, too
Only ninety pounds year! Mother
we must take II! III leave the factory
and turn dairymaid! I've saved enough
you know, to buy the two COWS ant
some fowls to begin with, and oh, i
will be such a happiness! Say yes
mother--do say yes.
When Mary Miller pleaded like this
this gentle widow never knew how t.
refuse; and the upshot of it was tina
they leased the old Dandy house, anc
became co-soyercigns Of the realm o
Meadow Farm.
1t was their first night there. Over
head the young May moon shont
through veil OF purple mist. A soil
tary owl hooted in the chestnut wooC
behind the house. For Meadow Farm
was situated on lonely moor-side
where no one ever came except OF
special business.
The chickens were safely shut u
where foxes could not reach them, no
ferrets steal in to bleed their young live
away; the cows--two fine young Alder
neys-were chewing the cud benin
the old red barn, and Mary Miller ha
flung a handful Of pine-logs on II
hearth where their scented blaze ILL
minated the old kitchen with Il leapin
brightness beautiful TO see.
''Because it's just possible that II
house may be damp" she said, aft
being uninhabited so long. Their
mother isn't that cheerful? And ism
it nice that our old rag-carpet shou