The Florida agriculturist., 1885-02-04
Miss Madison's Match.

Madge Madison was good looking. She
was neither too tall nor too short, too
plump nor too skinny. She had a clear
complexion, regular featuIes, and pair
of wonderfully attractive liquid grey
ewes. She had also an undeniable knack
of so manipulating her sometimes rather
shabby clothes that the beholder ceased
to remark their shabhiness in the dis
tinction of the wearer. Not that she
liked shabby clothes-she loathed them
with fervor few people credited her
with, but she was essentially self-con-
tanned person, and endured the minor
ills of Life with graceful fortitude. The
Madisons had never had any money to
speak Of and just now things had come
to crisis with them.
"What on earth's to be done with all
YOU girls ?" Colonel Madison had asked,
helplessly, of his four motherless daugh-
ters that morning at breakfast
1t was the Christmas holidays, and the
three younger ones had, of course, turn
ed up with the Christmas bills, equally
importunate and inopportune to their
impecunious father. Three more mouths
to be filled, three fine, tall, growing girls
to be clad in something, and the school
bills going on merely all the time. No
wonder the wretched colonel groaned
over his quiver-full.
"We must marry" said Lillian, the
beauty.
1--WE must work." said Ethel, who
took life seriously and had "views."
"Thank goodness, Pm too young fol
anything heroic to be expected of me, y
said Barbara, the baby, poutlng.
elias anything particular happened %
asked Madge.
''The bank has gone, and with it all
had, except my pension" said the un-
fortunate colonel, ,sighing deeply. "When
/ die you will all of you be paupers, so
it will be better for you to set about do
ing something for yourselves before the
bad day comes. For your sakes, chill.
dren, shall take every imaginable care
of myself: but, alas the best of us is
too much for the unlucky parent. He
lapsed into a melancholy taciturnity for
the remainder of the meal.
Atits conclusion Madge, who had been
thinking matters over, said: Father,
YOU are right about our doing something
for ourselves. / can't be a governess.
| don't know enough; but old Lady
Dumbledon wants a company-keeper.
l. Ill dSh IlCI W IelhC 1ICs clietii w SeeA IL
ing EGO year, and at the same time be
relieving you of one of your incum-
brances.
"You're a good girl, Madge. | am
sorry to sacrifice YOU, Pm sure 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 re-
Taxation of visit to school friend, now
we'll married and living in Kensington.
She returned from this outing some
what pensive, and in reply to the affec-
tionate badinage of her sisters, suffered
it to be elected that she had met man
at her friends house, whom in more for
tunate circumstances she could have
cared good deal for. Unhappily if, as
she owned 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 guest had separated af-
ter their three days chance acquaint-
anceship, in all human probability never
to meet again. Such is life and-luck.
She had, however, miscalculated the
powers of her own attractions. On the
eve of starting for Lady Dumbledon' Is
she received a singular letter from the
man whose good fortune it had been tc
so strongly recommend himself to her.
"He had been irresistibly drawn tc
her," he said, Sin the few days that they
had been thrown together, but he haC
then been too poor man to let the die,
tates of his heart find utterance. He
had let her go in silence, and had suffer
ed much in so doing. Now, things were
changed with him. He had most unex
pectedly come into property of 9lO,00
q year by the sudden heath OF relative
and he fastened to offer himself and his
newly-acquired fortune for her accept
ance. Circumstances connected witt