The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1885-01-16
aLENBURNB.

DO you suppose she will come to.
day?" asked Beatri1 Browne.
"Of course she will come" said Mr..
Herschel Hubert Browne. "Why
shouldn't she2"
"Oh, how can I tell?" cried impatient
Beatrix. "The train must have been
in long ago. And oh, me! here is the
barouche coming back without her!"
Mr. Herschel Hubert Browne was q
handsome, fashionably dressed young
man, with a big diamond on his little
finger and a conventional smirk on his
~countenance. Miss Beatrix, his sister,
was an artificial dam eel, costumed after
the latest Paris plat and their mother,
Mrs. Bethune Brow.4a, was a stylish
widow, who kept up q great deal Of APP
pearanGs Oh very little solid founda-
tion.
IF Herschel and Trix can only con-
trive to make good matches We shall
ride triumphantly v all these diff
culties," said she, complacently fan
ming herself with q jeweled Spanish
fan. So she had rented "Glenburnie,"
q pretty summer residence, engaged q
rst-class French cook, given o most
liberal order to the milliner and dress
maker, and issued invitations to a num-
Der Of friends to pass the summer with
her.
"The only mistake I made," said
Mrs. Browne, twas in coming to a
place whore my girlhood was spent. It
isn't pleasant to have stout old farmers
stopping one to ask if l succeeded i n
that school teaching venture. or that
speculation in taking boarders. or to be
told by red-faced old women I hold my
years wonderfully WE'LL"
But Mrs. Bethune Browne and her
son and daughter were doomed to lone
illness that afternoon. Miss Harper,
the New York heiress, had not come, as
she was expected, by the afternoon
train; and as the Bethune Brownies
were not people who ever took es-
pecial pains to entertain each other
the evening did not pass away in unmit-
igated bliss.
Miss Harper, however, had come.
The only mistake she had committed
was in leaving the train at Pine Bluff
station instead of Pine Hill station.
But how wa she, a born New Yorker,
whose antecedents we're only of Fifth av-
enue and Twenty third street, to dis
criminate between these puzzling simil-
arities?
She looked around at the pine thick
cts; she listened with o vague misgiv-
ing to the rush of the pebbly brook in
the copse; she glanced appealingly at
the ticket agent, who was rolling some
barrels Of. lime along the platform,
toward the freight-room.
us there no one here to meet me?"
she asked. II am Miss Harper, from
New York"
The ticket agent looked at the sky,
down at the daises, and then at the
forlorn stranger.
II don't see no one," said he.
81 am to go to the Brownes." said
she.
1.-THE Brownies, eh ?" said the agent.
'Yes," she said, eagerly, "the
Brownies"
"They don't live such a piece up the
road" said the agent, still considering
an especial daisy bud. whose soft, white
fringe was just opening to the sun
shine. II guess likely you might walk.
Anyhow. there amt no other way to
CO."
Miss Harper's heart beat exultantly.
Cup the road?" said she.
"That thar" ana the agent nodded
toward a distant mountain side.
"Ah," said Miss Harper, sis it very
lonely?"
"Bless you, no." said the agent.
"There's as many as three houses with
in the mile, not countin' the sawmill."
"And 1 can leave my trunk here to
be sent for?"
"Oh, yes" said the agent.
So Melicent Herper walked, French
boots, Paris hat, tiny mushroom parasol
and all.
It was q little cottage the very poetic,
picturesque cottage of her girlhood's
dreams, with caves reaching nearly to
the ground, wildernesses Of woodbine,
morning glories and scarlet runners
wreathing it around, and latticed win
dow panes; and at the door there stood
q young man, the handsomest she had
ever 9
Gam I living the pages of a story
book?" Melicent asked herself; land
is this the enchanted p~rince?"
And then she came forward, smiling.
yet timid.
II am Miss Harper from New York."
said she 1T have come to visit you.
We're you not expecting me?"
The gentleman looked puzzled.
"No," he said.
"Then you never got my letter."
"Never," said the enchanted prince.
II wrote to Miss Browne"
did your" with somc surprise.
How provoking" said Melicent,
reddening, and biting her ripe-red
cherry Of 4 lip. "But I hope you are
glad to see me?"
Eyes, indeed, we are," said Harry
Brown, instinctively polite. as he open
ed the door wide to admit the fair
stranger. "Do come in. Marian" to
some one beyond, there's Miss Harper,
from New York, come to see you. She
wrote us from New York. but, of course,
the letter never reached us!"
Marian, a slim, dark-eyed young Di-
ana, looked quite as bewildered as her
brother had previously done.
"You are welcome, she said. "Please
come up to my room and take off your
things"
1t was the tiniest Of little rooms.
In fact, the cottage itself lookedto Nell
cents metropolitan eyes as if you were
viewing it through the end of an opera
glass. But it WAS so neat, so dainty,
SO flower scented and pure. Melicent
was q little bewildered still. Glen.