The Arkansaw traveler., 1885-10-24
MADAME LAURE.
CHAPTER l.

"I can't make it out, Mary if tbe tidal train were ever SO ate she ought 10 have been in long before this.o
 ''Yes, suppose she ought" my sister said reluctantly '' The only thing is, you see, she is so strange to everything, and don't suppose she speaks much English ; it woald be only natural for her to be little delayed"
 A little delayed p exclaimed. !" My dear Mary, have you any idea of the time? It is past ten o'clock, and she ought to have been here between seven and eight"
 My sister raised her eyebrows in mild astonishment.
 II did no, know it was so long since you read prayers" sne said "the time always seems 10 fly so when we are by our selves. l wonder II we shall ever be rich enough to do without parlor boarders2' she added with wisttul look up at me, where lay back in any own special easy chair, resting my tired head after hard days work.
 It always seemed to be her one ambi. ton, that, just to have the little spare time we could call our oxn m the midst of our busy lives quite to ourselves. But did not know when t would be possible to gratify it. School keeping is arduous, preCarious work 1t had been so in our case, at any rate; and even now, when Mary, who was good deal younger than l, had entered into the forties did not see my way to any such radical change in our mode ot life. On the whole was fairly satisfied with the progress we had made and the position we held If our establishment was rot very large one, it was at least more select than nineteen out of twenty in an age winch is nothing it It is not leveling; and we had never to our knowledge admitted the daughter of tradesman within the charmed circle of our young ladies. People had begun to talk already of the higher education of women, and of preparing girls for uni versity examination as It they were their own brothers; but we set our faces against it from the first. We had no greater ambition tor the dear children committed from time to tune to our charge than that they should be fitted to adorn and elevate society as helpmeets to mep-not as their rivals.
 "You dear, good, oid-fashionei souls !! You are half century behind the simes," Lady Gay Spanker said to me once, " but if l had any guls of my own, should send them to you nevertheless.
 And we found that was tue way with a good many people. They laughed at us, but they believed in us. do not see myself how they could have done other wlse than believe in Mary. If ever there was an angel upon earth, she was one She was simply like the grandmother in the French poem the girls in the first class used to read and recite- Charity personihed. Whenever they came to the line
 70 grandmere," dit il, la charite Fest to''- used to find myself looking round in- voluntarily to the table at which she sat but though she may have seen the look and returned it with that ready smile of hers, the thought that was in my mind would never have occurred to her.
 Oh, wad some fay the gftie gie us
 To sec ourSels as others see us
 was not written of such as my Mary.
 She sat opposite me ca that September evening of which am writing, embroid- ering some delicate blue flannel, the color of which, as i. lay massed together ID her lap, threw up the sots tints of her com plexion in wonderful way. She had one of those lovely, creamy skins into which the least heat or excitement brings flush like the first flush of morning and what with the beauty of that, and the brilliancy of her sof', brown eyes con- trastipg with them, used to think that the white hairs, at which she had arrived so early, only constituted fresh claim to admiration. Everybody said "Miss Mary" had such sweet face. It was not merely matter of chiseling or color ing. There was upon it that beautiful calm and tenderness which can only come of heart at peace with itself and at leis. nre from itself. cannot describe it, bu,