Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1885-10-07

direct profession made by the admirer
who happened along her way SO fire.
quentIy, ever since he had been sum-
mering at the popular country resort
down the river.
"Wby should we covet what can
never he ours? ?" he repeated with his
meaningly tender accents. eve ought
not, but we do, Miss Seymour; we do
because the heart will not be con-
trolled. Heart calls to heart, soul
answers soul by instinct and not by
will, spontaneously, just as the birds
pipe, each to the other just as the
robins are singing now in grand locust
trees around u.s."
"And how eXquisitely melodious is
the singing in the fresh morning." she
mnrmured, her head uplifted, her blue
eyes sparkling, with all her really poet
ic delight in the sweet sounds or sub
lime sights of nature. ".Whatglorious
exultation, what a jubilee of ecstacy,
there are in the songs of the wild, free
BIRDS" she added, and then the little
rhapsody ceased with frown, a start,
a stihed, shuddering shrek.
''Lil, on'tyou feel the bigfuzzy cater
piller creeping and crawling down your
neck?" Mark interrupted, as he sud-
denly became visible just beyond the
thick currant shrubbery.
"O-oh, dear" Lillian calculated
with all the feminine horror supposed
peculiar to that sort of event.
'Why, surely | am your dear-that
was settled a considerable time ago."
the imperturbable Mark said, as with
snap Of his tanned fingers he dis
lodged the obtrusive caterpillar, a
huge, bristling, brownish, adherent
creature which had meant to spin it's
cocoon within her snug bodice and
turn itself into q chrysalis to emerge q
butterfly from her bosom. "The robins
have q prodigious appetite for the
caterpillars," Mark continued with an
odd twich of his firmly nodded lips,
and just perceptible twinkle in his
fine keen eyes; "howsoever, they can't
catch and gorge all the pesky crawling
things, greedy gluttons though they
be-"
Truly Mark had most unlucky
knack of divesting everything of the
poetic.
The elegant and refined Mr.. Neville
smiled pityingly, and Lillian, blushing,
pouting and mortified, dropped her
basket Of currants and hastily sped
away.
AS the last gleam of the trim pink
gown vanished at the further end of
the garden, Mark turned to his COM
panion.
Neville" he began, with an entire
change of voice and manner, "you are
not wanted here. Your own pledged
and plighted bride is waiting for you
at the hotel down yonder, and you
have no heed to come dangling and
dallying after simple girl as belongs
to another man."
And with that incisive Injunction,
the young fellow thUrst his hands in
his pockets, resumed a serene whistle,
and turned coolly away.
Pretty Lillian might have been
proud of her lover then, but instead,
her foolish little heart was filled with
resentment and rebellion.
HE is Jealous" she thought, as she
walked absently onward along a
grassy path, where violets and butter
cups bloomed in patches of azure and
gold. 'But [ will not be so mortified
by him again. He shall not come spy
ing after me and making me ridiculous.
Oh, what a wretched girl | am to be
hampered by marriage promises to a
clod without sentiment or feeling,
when, If [ were not bound, I might
have the affections of a tender and
superior gentleman like Mr.. Neville"
With a frown and a sob she flung
herself down upon the turf beneath a
shadowy tree and covered her dissat-
isfied face with her pretty hands.
How long she sat there she never
knew. Before her the river wimpled
and babbled in the sunshine; the
breezes waited the resinous scent of
pine and juniper and the perfume of
the locust trees about her; behind her
occasional hoofs and wheels stirred
the gray dust of the steep and tortu-
ous highway.
But presently she was aroused by
the merry tones of two riders, with
horses painting and tagging as il ex-
hausted by a prolonged gallop up the
river boulevard.
Then suddenly there was a. stumble
and a thud and a shrill, scared cry,
and she sprang to her feet to perceive
Mr.. Neville standing beside his fallen
saddle horse, which lay struggling in
the stony, ascendingroad.
'Ride on, my love, he was saying to
the handsome equestrienne who &C
companied him. ,t.'Ride on, and I
shall soon overtake you, when I shall
have brought this unruly brute to his
senses, he muttered, as she passed on
and rapidly disappeared around a
curve of the billy highway.
What succeeded Lillian never cared
to recall; for moments, which seemed
ages, she could only stare and shiver
at the blows, the imprecations, the
unreasoning passion which had trans
formed the elegant and refined Mr..
Neville into something infinitely more
ignoble than any clod whom he had
ever been pleased to despise.
But IN the midst of it all, somebody
.grasped his wrist, snatched the cudgel
from his hold, and tossed him aside
like feather.
"Neville," he began slowly and stern
ly, ''we don't pretend to be very pol
ished and sentimental hereabouts,
but we do claim to be merciful to the