The Penn's Grove record., 1885-11-21

year-old Spinster. She forgot TO intro
duce Alice, which that young lady an
grily resented, and attributed, with the
stiff manner, to a reproor for her own
levlty.
81 am quite well, except of course
for the liver,n he responded; "but a
man of my time of life, and who has
had so many years OF Indian diet, has
no right to expect anything from his
liver but discomfort"
There was an awkward little pause;
Miss Luttrell caught her breath.
"But you are looking well, Helen,' y
said the Colonel, the restraint suddenly
vanishing from his manner. "Youare
so little changed that | knew your face
in a minute when l encountered you
this morning at least there seemed
something very familiar in it; and, VIXEN
Bennett told me your name, it all flashed
upon me-"
"Then you did not really recognise
mep" said Miss Luttrell, with a cold
little smile.
"Why, of course not, orI should have
stoppedl'
Colonel Norreys actually blusbed,
and glanced so consciously at Alice that
Miss Luttrell instantly guessed who
had been the real object of his atten-
ton.
my niece. Miss Wentworth" she
said introductory, and then was 81
lent.
If she had spoken, she felt she must
have cast aside her dignity and said
something angrily stlnging-she, the
gentle Helen LuttrelI, who was never
known to speak a sharp word.
Yes-the long gap OF twenty-four
years had vanished, and she was a jeal-
GUS petulant girl again, ready to take
up the thread of her last quarrel with
Seymour Norreys where it had been
dropped; only Seymour Norreys did not
appear to entertain the same feelings
with regard to her, she thought, with a
smart of the old bitterness.
She sat silent for two or three min
utes, during which her mind drifted
back to the time when she had paid
that memorable visit to Hampstead,
and had met young Norreys, then a
lieutenant in the --th. Every scene
every incident, every emotion re-
Cured to her mind the children'S
party, to which two or three grown-up
people had been asked TO help to anus
the little ones; her first waltz with a
real officer; her first taste Of admiration
IN the whispered fattery and the devo.
ted attention bestowed on her that
evening; the night at the opera, when
Seymour mad made his way from the
stalls and stayed beside her, and escor-
4o1 hor+A tba oarriaoa. thu holf-ao91-
dental meetings on Hampstead Heath
the evil spirit Of jealousy aroused by
Ethel Browning'S disparaging hint that
officers did not like ''bread- and BUTTER
misses, though they might amuse them
selves with such girls in the absence of
others; then that most lovely of spring
days, when they all went TO Kensing-
ton Gardens, and Seymour Norreys
contrived to get her away from the
others and told her that he loved her,
and made her promise to marry him;
and then the drive home, when Ethel
managed to secure the officers atten-
ton for herself, and said such unkind
things when they were alone afterwards.
The next morning she had gone to
meet him alone onfhe hearth, as they
had arranged; but she was so long in
making up her mind and in battling
Ethel that she was an hour late, and
met Norreys coming away from the
trysting place. She was tged and cross
and somehow they quarreled.
She awoke suddenly to consciousness
of the present; it seemed as if she must
have been for hours in q state of sus-
pended animation. What would the
others think? Had she looked peculiar?
Had she revealed her thoughts in her
face? Were they wandering and con-
occurring about her?
But, with a sharp pang of humilia-
ton, she saw at once that they had been
two busy thinking of each other to re-
member her presence In the room.
ssHe likes Observation-Disclosures misses
now,n she thought sadly; ''but, when l
was eighteen, l could not have talked
as Alice is talking now. Dear mel |
thought men hated clever women, and
J thought that Affects school despised
men and would never dream of laying
themselves out to win admiration
Miss Luttrell went to her room ear
her than usual to put on her evening
dress. She looked at herself long and
wistfully in the glass, and tried to re-
call her face at eighteen.
She could not have looked so very
different, she thought. She had grown
neither stout nor thin; she had neither
gray hair nor wrinkles; her eyes looked
quite as young and eager and bright as
they used to do when she surveyed her.
self before going out for the walks on
Hampstead Heath. 1t must have been
the style of dress, she concluded, that
really made the difference.
She looked through the photograph
album that evening, and found one of
her own, slightly faded, taken during
har visit to London. 1t was a full
length portrait, i'll which she appeared
in a gigantic crinoline. Certainly
the last She had taken looked much
nicer. She showed tho old mi to
Alice.
s'That Is what / was at your age. /
am a great deal changed, am / notY" she
asked.
..Why, what an old fright you werer'
Alice exclaimed. "You look really
younger now than you did then, if that
photograph is anything to go by. 1t
must have been very hard on girls to
make them look like old women"
"Girls did dress odd then" Miss Lut-
trell admitted, and then told herself
that perhaps, after all, Alice was right
that she did look younger now, with
modern advantages of dress, than she
did in the bloom of her teens.
She still kept up her music, and play
ed well; but she seldom sang. This
evening she turned over her old school.
girl volumes and found a song that
Seymour used to be very fond of, and
in which her upper notes came out well
She hogan to sing it; but soon she
pushed the music impatiently away
the words appeared so silly and the
melody somehow had lost its charm.
Then Alice sang a song of Sehubert's,
and her aunt took up her knitting with
a sigh.
The next day Colonel Norreys came
again, this time with Sir Alfred, who
invited them to dinner on the morrow.
"You will forgive the rough ways of
a bachelor household. y be said; and it
did not occur to Miss Luttrell until
hours afterwards, so naturally did she
take her place as chaperon, that she
would not have been asked to come
with. Alice to that bachelor house.