The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1884-02-20
A STREET FLOWER
BY REBECCA HARDING DAVIS,

My heroine is one OF a very COM
mon type. Lesley Pope, at fifteen,
did not differ a whit from tens OF
thousands of other American girls oi
that age; but they, in their turn,
are like girls of fifteen in no nation
on the globe. Leslie had delicate
patrician features, an inexplicable
air of high breeding, clear, dark
eyes that looked out on the world
with calm self POSSESSION, = diScord-
ant, incisive voice, and an acute, i'm
itative intellect. She found use
for this last at a very early age.
Mrs. Goodwin de c Pope, her
mother. was the superior woman
of Clapp City, an inland town.
Need | describe her? She was i'm
posing in her dress, her house, her
speech. She could not draw on her
glove, nor bid you good morning
without showing you that she was
not as other women are. She was
voluable and fluent, but uncompro-
misingly grammatical. She gave
receptions; she inauguratej the
Musical Club Of Clapp City. She
insisted that it was a woman's duty
to keep herself abreast ofthe age in
which she lived. Hence she fed
herself mentally, by turns, with
Canon Farrer and Ingersoll and Zola
and Fors Clavigera and Colonel
Waring on Drainage" Of course
she proposed to give Lesleys mind
a collegiate training. She had
countless anxieties about Lesley
mind. The child was set on her
own feet at four, to think for herself.
Even the infant said Mrs Pope,
should Lot be mere absorbent
plant, but feel itself in its degree, an
active, live member ofthe universe. "
Leslie at ten, therefore, was no longer
a pupil, but the critic of her mother
and the people about her, and as
acerb and intolerant critic as youth
is apt to be. She was absolutely
certain that the opinions she had
or learned at the Clapp
City Academy goverRed the world.
As for social position the family of
Goodwin de c. Pope, wholesale
dealer in leather, in her mind out
ranked philosophers, posts, princi
palities and powers.
Mrs. Pope took care that Lesley's
marks were above the average in
her classes, and that she had efli
cient dressmakers and masters
There she stopped. As mother
she was responsible for her child's
mathematics, Latin, gowns and Par
isian accent. But for the mysteries
Of life, love, marriage, maternity
and religion-she was left to find
that all out for herself. She did
find it out. She was a girl, by ma
ture, OF pure instincts, in which she
had the advantage of many of her
schoolmates. At eight she began to
read the books of a popular writer
for children, in which the love al
fairs of BOYS in knickerbockers and
girls with dolls, are conducted TO
happy marriages. At ten, any story
but that of love was insipid and
tasteless; she pinsd for a lover OF
her own; the passions and longings
which belong to maturity already
stirred in her little breast At eley-
en- she had Irritation with a hand /
some messenger boy, who left his er-
-ands waiting while he escorted /
her to school.
Mrs. Pope did not believe in
chaperoning a young girl through
the streets and in the cars" 1t was !
a seryile imitation ef French man
ners. She had much to say Of the
. innate purity of American girls,
Of the "boldness of absolute inno- 4
Her daughter should be- no I.
hot-house flower She gave her,
the streets to bloom .
IN.
Leslie, beng attractive, and the
daughter of one of the richest men
in Clapp City, sooD had an acquaint-
lnee with all the marriageble young
fellows about town, of every decent
class. Men and lads, totally un-
known to her parents, walked with 4
her to school, paid her fare in the I
cars, bought her candy, or treated .
her to ice cream or oysters. They
we're vain of being seen with SO
toney" girl as old Pope's daugh
.er, while Leslev's heart was kept in
4 perpetual uncertain tiutter. Every
evening the parlor was given up to
her, and she entertained five or six
beardless students, clerks and shop
boys, who brought their friends and
their friends friends TO the house,
consulting her or her moth
sr. Her teachers were only making
Of her a poor mathematician and a
poorer linguist, while .hese men and
BOYS were making OF her the wo
man, wife and mother she was TO 4
De,
1t was when she was sixteen that /
Leslie became engaged. She was !
ate. Most of her school-fellows had /
been in this ecstatic condition half
4 dozen times. Her engagement |
had lasted three months, when Mr.. I.
Lippard, the fdncee, suddenly dis
and a few weeks later
wrote her from St. Louis ? tragic
letter that he was driven from her
by creoel circumstances and was
a lonely creature scrooged by desti-
ny" The fact was, Mr.. Lippard
was in debt TO every hotel keeper
and rum seller in Clapp City. He
was now second clerk on a river
steamboat, and passed his time tip
pling, playing poker, and flirting
with afiable lady passengers. But
Lesley kept his letters and sobbed
over them at lengthening intervals