The Arkansaw traveler., 1884-09-06
LUCK OF LUKE STANDS
CHAPrEr

CHAPrEn. !.
 :. was d quaint little village, tha, of elspar l. is still quaint village, al though Feispar is famous in it's way now, aad has one big hotel in the valley, and ay the stream which falls headlong from ;ae hills to 3 bow,cer-broken channel Fashes by, q mass of seething silver in the san The hotel does well n the summer Ime, because there are curiosities in Felspar, and tourists and geologists come . see them because there are fine bits Q English hill scenery and woodland, ,p.ne trees and white weird tors, and artists come to paint them: because the scide-books have written up Felspar, and $ fashionable to see i., and fashionable folk. being sheep-like, come in droves in Ire season with cdd-looking shepherds to keep an eye upon them sometimes. But cur story Is of Felspar before ii woke up ard found itself famous, and of certain humble individual who helped to make !: .arlogs, and who. without a dream of greatness, fortunate fellow that he was, had gre 4tEess ;hrus; upon him. There gre some llcky people IT the world even Q! d world not lying back more than if cen years from presen. date.
 Fifteen years ago. then. Felspar was aaly known 10 d tew Tn the county in Saica !, was hiding, and 10 the people who lived and died in the little nest of cottages clustered by the one-arched s:one bridge crossing the babbling brook :: = the inhabitants of the bigger village len miles away, and 70 a fcw folk in the aea,es. town, twenty miles Of, as the crow flies. the town that had railway station a.l to itself and was a :iourishing place, ..,d had waters which cured gout and rheumatism and general bone disar- .Angements, and was a, ali times and sea- sons running over with every variety of cripple and contoriionist.
 eispa: fifteen years ago was only rum n!ng over with every variety of beauty which il had completely, which those liv- 'og n 1t day by day did not seem to value. for they were home-spun, mat ;er-of.iact ios, whose only thought was aow to live, but whe eiung to the place because their fathers and grandfa,hers had elang 10 t before them, struggling in the summer on a-few-shillings-a-wee ks sage te rear large families-and rearing iheG, and fighting with the winter always very desperately, and dying in the 'igh, now ard then.
 l. was getting on for winter, when the days were cold and the nights set in very early in the Eeispar valley, although the leaves had not all shaken themselves of the trees, and tkere were rare autumnal ,ints asou. for those who cared 10 notice them, and nobody did care. "Leayes ofownish was the one verdict, and there was an end Of <, jus, as in the city scme- times money s..ts sh,ish." and then there's an end of that
 And ye, if any one noticed the beauty os the autumn in the valley, i, was Peggy BIaI;wel., pretty gil acciima,ized to much out-of-docr occupation, with her srandfa,her's pigs and poultry to look after, and two COWS to milk, and her grandfather to keep in good temper, and make sure that his poor old legs took him up safely 10 bed in the early evening be- fore " . sigh, of candle light was wasted Peggy was beauty in her way, or rather had been beauty in her day, for she was seven -and-tweriy now. She was a favor i.e with Felspar folk. who thought her grandfather was hard upon her, and put .Pon her, like an old curmudgeon as he vas, they said. old Bran,weil being as generally disliked as are mos, people who give themselves airs and are better of than their neighbors. Why Peggy had grown up so amiable and lovabie d little woman under the guardianship of Mat thew Rrantweil no enc exactly could make out, and why, when 1t was rumored he was kind to her. and said hard things, and taunted and suspected her. and threatened her even with turning her out of house and home, she did not take him al his word. and get " cop and co. O il, ? the Felspar community did not under stand But the Felspar community was not quick sf comprehension they were jelly certain Peggy could have done bes- ter tor herself than remaining all these yeaEs her grandfather's drudge-tha, Lady Glide up at the hall would have been glad long ago to have had her for iadys maid, and trained her Tor a lady's maid; they did not think it possible that there could be any affection for an irrita- bie, rasplng, ungenerous old hunks who gave nobody good word !; she might De waiting for her grandfasher's money- which, with his usual spirit of conraxi- ness, he would be sure Co leave else- vhere-but it vas impossible to say what she was waiting for. ualess- she vas vaiting for LnAs Shands, which we may say as once was exactly the fact q the case.
 Perhaps, to put it more politely, it would have ben graceful to say LaesA Shands vas wsisiny for her; but ss shsy vess waiting jer each other, t mastezs not 2 great deal and looking at 1t either way is to look as in the right light.
 Aatthew Bssntwsll, however, did not soek q t h tAs rishs lsAs at an; tAsy