The Penn's Grove record., 1885-08-01

sat writing busily, covering sheet after
sheet of blue fOolscap with the funny
twisted black letters that Freda knew
so well. By and-by that foolscap will
be made INTO a roll or a fat letter, and
it will be sent to the post office and
sent to London. Sometimes the pack
age comes back again, and then her
mother looks disappointed and sad
sometimes 1t remains, and a small let
ter arrives instead, with only a few
words in it. Then Mrs. Leslie SMILES,
and seems bright and happy. When
the small letter appears, a present-a
picture-b0ok, a tiny doll, or u paper of
chocOlate-usually turns up for Freda
Consequently she feels she has a vested
interest in the speedy despatch of the
foClscap parcel, and would not do any
thing to retard It's completion.
Her interrupting question this even
ing is quite an exception, and perhaps
Mrs. Leslie thinks SO; perhaps she re-
members that this small g~rave-eyed,
soft-voiced speaker has been alone all
day, save for unlmaginative Bridget's
company, while she herself has been
tramping up and down muddy lanes
and in and out of uncongenial houses,
earning daily bread for her child to eat
AT any rate paper and pen are pushed
aside. and long slender fingers wander
%caressingly through Freda's tangled
golden hair. while her mother says
"What is that you are asking about
fairies, litts Freddiep Don't you
know that since the world grew so old
and practical, the fairies have left it
and gone back to ~fairyland forever"
But at this Freda shakes her head.
SAT any rate, the three bears are
here still" she w triumphantly.
Il see their Den every day in my walks
and when | ask Bridget if they are the
same bears that are in my story-book,
she says, Yes. the very same Fancy
that, motherl Do you think it Is truef''
adds the child anxiously.
Mrs. Leslie smiles. The busy life
she has led since she settled, only a
year ago, IN Uppingham has left her no
leisure to listen to and idle tales re-
speeding the neighbors surrounding her;
and Indeed she is ignorant even oftheir
names, with the exception of three or
four families she visits daily in the ca
paclty of muslc-mistress or French
gOverness.
II am sure, if the three bears dc
live near here, Little GOlden-Hatr is
not far off, she answers, falling into
the quaint conceit to please the little
one. "YOu should go and take a peep
into their Den, Freda; but don't break
the little bears chair, and be sure not
to fall when you jump out of the win
dowp'
Freda, gravity itself, stoops to pick
up the gaudy plcture-b book lying at her
feet. 1t opens, curiously enough, at a
highly colored representation of the re-
nowned Golden-Hair taking a flying
leap from the wide lattice, while the
three bears, in frantic attitudes and
attired in very tight blue-and-green
jackets, lean out in various stages OF
anxiety to watch her.
1.-The Den windows are not like this
one in the picture" the girl observes,
in a criticising tone. "They T big
ger and much nearer the ground, l am
sure, so that l would not have To jump
far if / ran away, which L should not
do unless l found that the bears were
going to eat me. Perhaps when | have
been to see Them" muses. Freda, in a
dreamy tone, and speaking more to
herself than to her mother, 81 could go
on farther into the dark wood that lies
behind their house, and find the Sleep
ing Beauty and the Dwarf's hut, where
Snowwhite lived, and"
"And Jack the Giant Killer, and
Puss in Boots, and Dame Trot's cat,
and Mother Hubbard's dog" laughs
Mrs. Leslie, as she closes the rosy mouth
with a shower of kisses" "Oh, Freda,
what a delicious little piece of simplic-
ity you are, and how idle you would
make me if | had time to stay and lis
ten to your idle fanciesl l had just
such, though, when | was your age
adds the fond mother, with a smile and
a sigh,
Tell me about it." pleads Freda, as
she nestles against her mothers knee
while the autumn wind signs without,
and freight and lamp light CLEAN soft
ly on the two figures, 80 pathetic in
their clInging attitude, their tender
grace. ''Tell me of the Old French gar
den where you used to gather herbs for
the soup, and of gr~andpapa's gray dom
key that carried Marie to market, AMI
about the church, and the great yellow
cat, and the funny white cottage with
real grapes on it, where you lived when
you was a child like me, Mother"
continues Freda sitting up with sudden
energy, II cannot think why you ever
left grandpapa to marry father. | will
never leave you-never--not to be mar
ried to anybody"
Large tears rise quickly in Mrs. Les
lies gray eyes. AS the child speaks,
the home Of her early days, so often
described to Freda, stands out, distinct
as any photograph, III the mothers
memory, a picture eve to be effaced
the queer remote French watering
place, inaccessible then save by hours
of tedious mountain travel, where her
father held an English chaplaincy for
many years, an appointment that suit
ed his feeble health and slender means;
she recalls her own motherless yet most
happy childhood, that seemed one end
less round of sunny days and moonlit
nights, the joyous girlhood that sue
ceeded it, and then the sudden crush
lllH UlUW. LILO UTICA RCNNCA NlDaHROi1l-
ment that shattered all her early hopes,
causing her consent 10 be ca lily won
afterwards when her friends pressed
on her an ill-assorted and hasty mar
riage, a marriage that turned out worse
than i'll, embittering her whole existence
till death stepped in, after six weary
years, and mercifully dissolved the
union.
The loss of her father during her
first year of wIdowhood left Mrs. Leslie
utterly alone in the world, dependent
almost entirely on her own exertions
for the support of herself and Fredda.
A chance advertisement for a daily
g~overness led to her establishing her
self at Uppingham; and, once there,
her indomitable energy caused her to
leave no stone unturned in her efforts
to keep the wolf from the door of the
little home that sheltered her child.
During the day she taught mdefatiga-
bly, music, French. drawing, painting
nothing came amiss to her versatile
talents. AT night she wrote for the
newspapers and magazines tales, verses,
TRANSACTIONS, anything that might bring
in a pound to lay by against a rainy
day.
II was a hard life. a hand to- hand