Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1884-06-28
SELECT STORY.
A SOCIETY ITEM.

Sharpe in quite fever of excitement.
He was leaning over the little green
painted gate, coatless and blue-shirted.
Just beyond Miss Abigail Byrnes
paused in her task of tying up heavy
| headed August roses-a tall, angular
figure clad in brown and white striped
print and big yellow sunbonnet. Very
bony, scant of smiles and hard Of feature
was Miss Abigail, but gentle and gen.
erous as child's was the heart under
the calico gown.
"No," she replied, 81 haven't seen
it-what's the news?"
He responded with a counter ques-
ton.
"You remember Roger Kearney ,"
''To be sure. He went to the city 20
start a big store. What of him p
"They be sayin' down at the corner
that just now when he had got his big
store built, stocked and fourishin' he
has gone and been burned clean out !;
every yard of silk stuff and ivory but
ton"
He paused, breathless.
Miss Abigail clasped her thin hands
and elevated her pale brows in disnay
not at the peculiar English and
curious rhetoric of her narrator, but
at the startling information impaired.
LAND sakes," she calculated, "you
don't say SOP
Simon nodded vigorously.
eyes, he affirmed with the apparent
savage relish observable in even phleg-
matte natures when the misfortunes of
another is the subject of discussion,
''lost everything, they say! Hadn't
no insurance neither. Hain't saved a
spool of thread. Not as much as
hook, eye, nor darnin' noodle left ~
Miss Abigail tied the the strings of
her sunbonnet afresh and let down her
gown, which had been pinned care
fully up. ''I'll just run over to Mrs.
Evans" she declared, "and borrow
the Courier. She takes it. News
don't taste good second hand anyhow"
And she went.
Leaning out of picturesque, vine
wreathed window up at the rambling,
white country house of which Miss
Abigail was mistress, looked pretty
Dorothy Stratton.
"Where on earth is aunt going ?" she
asked herself bewilderedly as she
caught sight of the tall figure. "Leav-
ing the roses only half tied up too !"
But just then stray sunbeam lit the
stone on Dorothy's finger to a dazzling
flame. She forgot all about Miss
Abigail's hurried exit as she turned it
now this way, now that, and ended by
kissing it with burst of rapture.
"You dear, dear little ring" she said.
You see it was quite novel to her
yet, her engagement and her ring.
This was only August. In May she
had never dreamed of the existence of
such person as Mr.. Paul Carlisle.
He had come down to Blue Berry
Hill in June, successful young
sculptor, seeking isolation, rest and
country quiet, and the very first thing
he did-he, who could have chosen last
season from half dozen brilliant So
ciety belles-was to fall head over ears
in love with Dorothy Stratton.
She captured his erratic artistic fam
cy and she pleased his instructive sense
of refinement.
She was SO 1.-the and graceful, with
such arch, graceful curves of throat
and arm, and she held her small sloe-
black head with such quiet, charming
dignity. And what could be more win
some than the face with its colorless
skin and liquid grey eyes and curved,
black brows and grave, sweet crimson
mouth
Just how June and July had passed,
neither of these happy, foolish young
people could have lucidly explained.
And the precise manner in which he
had spoken at last, the shy confusion
of her answer, the parting, with hopes,
regrets, love unutterable, was still a
nero mystic, entrancing, delicious re-
membrance.
But there was the ring glittering,
tangible reality. So what wonder that
Dorothy turned it up and down, and
under and over, and kissed it IN sheer
JOY of heart
Over at Mrs. Evans Miss Abigail
sat, her sunbonnet united and pushed
back on her head, her spectacles perch
ed on her accommodatingly rigid nose,
deep in the perusal OF the Cyclops
Courier.
"Too bad, eh - queried Mrs. Evans,
quickly topping gooseberries.
eyes! ~ assented Miss Abigail, "after
all his years of saving. "Ah, what's
this?"
"What's what ?" asked Mrs. Evans,
startled at her guests tone. She was
staring straight at the sheet, her eyes
very troubled and her mouth grimly