The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1885-09-18
Won by Mistake.

ct do wish you'd sit down and keep
quiet, Bessie You distract me so, hut-
tcring round the room like bird"
Now Miss Minerva Elliott was tall
masculine female, hard ON the "thir-
ties" with stiff little curls, and gold
trimmed spectacles and a stand-up collar
and cravat, like q mans, and she was
Very busy among pile of books and
papers, preparing hard questions in
tended for the humiliation of her Sum
day school class on the morrow, while
little sixteen-year-old Bessie, with her
pink and white skin, brown curls. and
innocent blue eyes, picked up her white
kitten and beat o retreat, inexpressibly
mortified at having distracted her
staid sister.
81 suppose I shall learn better some
time" thought Bessie; "but, oh, dear!
I am such silly little goose.
She went on tiptoe past the door where
Mr.. Leroy, the young minister, was en-
gagged in the revision of his sermon, for
Mr.. Leroy lodged at Widow Elliott's,
and Bessie felt her youth and folly more
painfully than ever in his dignifed
presence.
She stood q moment in the doorway,
where the cheerful July sunbeams made
q golden checker work on the floor,
quivering through the morning-glory
vines, and sweet odor crept subtly i'll,
of newly -mown clover field, and roses
just poisoning along the garden wall.
Ell know what I'll do, thought Bessie,
as her pet, the kitten, darted away
through the bushes. "I'll have some
of those ripe cherries.
Bessie bounded down the garden walk,
and, deity climbing the old stone wall,
swung herself into the branches of the
huge cherry tree, like white-plumed
little bird.
"N1other would be Mortified, and
Minerva would have o it," quietly
thought Bessie; "but it is SO nice and
shady up here. and the robins are steal
ing all the cherries almost wish I
was a robin. it is such pleasant life up
among the green leaves with the blue
sky peeping through. Dear me, hope
that isn't mamma"
Bessie crept branch or two higher
up, as footsteps came down the garden
path.
Alas! her premonitions were but too
correct Mrs. Eilliott's cap strings were
futtering below, and Mrs. Elliott's self
had come out with bowl to pick
currants, accompanied by Aunt Sophia,
her sister.
"Now I'm caught, soliloquized our
little heroine. 81 hope they won't be
long. I wonder what they are talking
about. Mr.. Leroy, as live"
And Bessie held her breath, and
secretly laughed to see how utterly un-
conscious the two old DANES were of her
near vicinage.
eyes," said Mrs. Elliot, solemnly,
''he's a good young man, very good
young man.
There amt no minister all the
country round gives such satisfaction :"
said Aunt Sophia. "Them cabbages is
comm on fine, Julia!"
sob, bother the cabbages !" said
Mrs. Elliott, tartly; cts about Mr..
Leroy I'm talking, Sophia. But he
ought to marry and settle down. A
single minister can't do all the good he
could if he was married t'
"Thats true" assented Aunt Sophia
"and Minerva would make capital
minister's wife!"
"She's the very wife he needs!-and
if some one would just put the idea into
his head"
perhaps he doesn't mean to marry. "
''Then he is doing very wrong, en-
couraging Minerva the way he does
wall1in' to Sunday school with her, and