Connecticut western news., 1884-09-17
AN OLD WOMAN'S TALE.

It is an old tale, the experience of age striving in vain to temper the enthu- siasm of youth. I am mother now; and sedate matron may well sigh to remember how she loved to think her old friends splenetic through infrmity, dearly as she loved them, rather than abate one atom of the fairy visions which danced around her.
 And when the arch enchanter, Love, waved his wand, and bathed earth and sea and sky in hues of purple and gold, how cruel seemed the hand, though stretched in tenderest watchfulness, that would fain have brought her back to the sober hues of reality.
 In the arrogance of youth, of beauty, we forget that our kind monitor has . felt us we feel the same fond trust, the same ecstatic hope, and can say, "I, too, shepherd, in Arcadia dwelt."
 have never known the blessed care of 8 mother, but her venerable parent wss permitted to watch over our or phaned childhood. I can now under stand her earnest and prayerful anxiety, as we grew up to womanhood, and the time for our settlingin life drew near.
 can feel with her now. though in my inexperience could not then, for I, too, have fair girls to guard, whose hap piness here and hereafter is entwined with my very heartstrings.
 l remember the day on which my father told our grandmother of my en- gagement to your father. was then, my Margaret, young and light-hearted as yourself, and dear grandmamma laid her withered hand on the curls which clustered in golden luxuriance, and tears dropped slowly down hor venera- ble cheeks.
 "Do not grieve, dear grandma I shall not leave you for long time yet; and," added, pressing her hand in both of mine, "I shall see you very often" s.-
 Here my own tears began to flow, for in the engressment of my new feelings had scarcely dwelt on the severing oI old ties, which my new engagement would involve.
 ''It is no selfish grief that thus af- ficss me, said my beloved monitor. "l would not cloud your young spirits, nol dim the hopes which are said to bless the morning of life and fit us for the burden and heat ofst the day; but you, my Grace, remind me of my cherished daughter Agnes, whose early death you have often heard me lament. I will now tell you something of her life. and if i makes you rejoice with trembling amit your present happiness, that happiness will be more likely to endure. Fron her infancy I had watched over Agnes with more fearful tenderness than any other of my children. Hers was char acter strangely made up of quick and joyous impulse, and deep, unsuspecteG feeling. She seemed altogether with out that cowardice so often attributed to women as reproach, but which, il 8 world of dangers, often serves her & well as the cautiousness of wisdom Meanness and cunning she scorned. an the petty artifice so common in bot sexes was never found in her. He spirits were high and untamable-some times to wildness; but if unkindly c harshly rebuked, none so utterly sut dued. Gan you wonder, then, that watched over her as if she were som precious vessel sent out on sea full C rocks, quicksands and whirlpools |? used often to pray that, be her lot i life what it might be, she might eve feel the balm of loving looks and kin words"
 "And what wss her lot in life, dea gaandmamma, and was she happyp D tehme all about her. Was she pretty ?
 ''She was not so fair as her siste Grace" l" continued grandmamma; "br