Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1885-02-13
MISS MADISON'S MATCH
A Very Clever Woman's Very
Clever Scheme.

Clever Scheme.
Madge Madison was good looking.
She was neither too tall nor too short,
too plump nor too skinny. She had a
clear complexion, regular features, and
a pair of wonderfully attractive liquid
gray eyes. She had also nundeniable
'knack of SC manipulating her some-
times rather shabby clothes that the
ibeholder ceased to remark their shah
Ibiness in the distinction of the wearer.
Not chat she liked shabby clothes-she
Iloathed them with a fervor few people
credited her with, but she was essen
TALLY a self-contained person, and en-
idured the minor ills of life with grace
full fortitude. The Madisons had never
had any money to speak of, and just
now things had come to a crisis with
them.
''NNhat on carth's to be done with all
you girls!?" Colonel Madison had
asked, helplessly, of his four mother
less daughters that morning at break
fast.
1t was the Christmas holidays, and
the three younger ones had, of course,
turned up with the Christmas bills,
equally imp%ortunate and inopportune
to their ~impecunious father. Three
more mouths to be filled. three fine,
tall, growing girls to be clad in some
thing, and the school bills going on
merrily all the time. No wonder the
wretched Colonel dreamed ovcr his
9uiver-full.
1--WE must marry" said Lillian, the
beauty.
'We must work. said Ethel, who
took life seriously, and had ''views."
"Ihank goodness, I'm too young for
anything heroic to be expected of me-"
said Barbara, the baby. pouting.
HAS anything particular happened?"
asked Madge.
The bank has gone, and with it all
1 had, except my pension" said the
unfortunate Colonel, signing deeply.
'.When 1 die you will all Of you be
paupers. so it will be better for you to
Set about doing something for your
selves before the bad day comes. For
Your sakes, children, 1 shall take every
imaginable care of myself; but, alas!
VIC UtSt III us is Dlll luOIUil. lie
affecting thought was too much for the
unlucky parent. He lapsed into a mel
ancholy taciturnity for the remainder
Of the meal.
AT its conclusion, Madge, who had
been thinking matters over, said:
Father, you are right about our
doing something for ourselves. l can't
be a goyerness, I don't know enough;
but old Lady Dumbledon wants a COM
pany-keeper. I'll ask her to take me.
Ilshall be earning $50 a year, and at
the same time be relieving you OF Il
of Your incumbrances.n
''Iou're Il good girl, Madge. I am
sorry to sacrifice you, but [ don't see
any help for it,
Miss Madison was a girl of action.
She speedily had all the preliminaries
settled with Lady Dumbledon, whose
service she,was to enter toward the end
OF January. But before taking up her
new duties she permitted herself the
relaxation of a visit to q school-friend,
o we'll married and living in Ken
sington.
She returned from this outing
what pensive. and, in reply to the af-
f~cctionate badinage of her sisters. sui
fered it to be elected that she had met
man at her friends house, whom in
more fortunate circumstances she could
have cared q good deal for. Unhap-
PLY if, as she owned that she suspected,
the favorable impression had been
mutual, there could be no results from
it. Her too brief visit had come to an
end; and she and her delightful fellow
U1nSt hlI cpna1-ntn1 offa, tl,ni,, tb ,.n,
days chance acquaintanceship, in all
human probability never to meet again.
Such is life and-luck!
She had. however, miscalculated the
power OF her own attractions. On the
eve OF start 80 for Lady Dumbledon's
she received gUlar letter from the
man whose GOOD fortune it had been
to so strongly srecommcnd himself to
her.
'.He had been irresistably drawn to
her," he said, Sin the few days that
they had been thrown together, hut he
had then been too poor man to let the
dictates of his heart find utterance.
He had let her go in silence and had
suffered much in sodoing. Now things
We're changed with him. He had most
unexpectedly come into a property of
100000 a year by the sudden death Of
Il relative, and he fastened to offer HIM
self and his newly-acquired fortune for
her acceptance. Circumstances con
nected with his accession to fortune
nece-sitated his Immediately starting
for Australia, and would keep him out
OF England fora year. Would she for
give his precipitate wooing out of
charity for the violence of his passion
for her, and to promise tc become his
wife az soon as he returned home?:"
This, denuded OF many passionate
expressions of regard, was the sub
stance of the letter.
Mss Madison carried it to her father.
..What shall you do, child" he asked,
a%uXiously.