The Penn's Grove record., 1885-03-21
MILLY.

IL -
A.. Rector of Weston Parva and Hon
orary Canon of Cotswold, considered
himself a much-worried man and the
victim of his surroundings. Travelling
tourists of modest ambitions, noting,
with an approaching eye, the pretty
Whitewashed cottages, with their plump
~rosy-cheeked inmates, and the gray
walls of the venerable old church, which
Father Time had painted with soft
many-coloTed licllens, and catching from
the top of the st~age-coach a glimpse OF
the ivy-clad gables of the Rectory, with
the roses peeping in at the quaint dla-
mond PANIED windows, the smooth we'll
kept carriage drive, and the velvety
emerald green lawn. with its famous
laurels and gigantic magnolia; were
wont to expend some unnecessary envy
over the Rector's happy lot. and to de-
clare enthusiastically that mortal man
eonld wish for no happier fate than to
spend his life IN this peaceful home,
writing out his weekly sermons under
the purple shadow of the majestic noun
tains, overlooking the morals Of a nat
urally v~irtuous flock, and finally sleeping
peacefully under the daisied sod of the
quiet God's-acre, followed by the tender
regrets of his fearful and reverent par
ishioners.
Apparently, the Reverend Archibald
himself couls not always take this
roseate view of his condition, and gem
orally made the most of his crumpled
rose-leaves. The prospectively fearful
parlshioners he was well content to
leave in the obscurity of some vague
far. distant future, while in the more
important present he was undergoing
the sufferings of a rigid antiquarian
and archRologist of severely cultured
tastes condemned to preach twice every
Sunday in an early Norman church
with the painful anachronism OF pointed
Gothic windows. Then the misery
Squire Of Weston Parva vas wont to
emphasize his Low-Church views I'M
pleasantly whenever the poor Rector adj
vecated some improvement in the ritual;
and now, finally-worst grievance of all
his bright, capable, pretty Milly had
taken it into her head TO imagine her
self in love with that unpleasant Squires
scapegrace son, Stephen Corcoran--
muscular IDIOT Canon Bland men,
tally designated him. 1t was an aber-
TdJlOu VI IdSlc uldCSouh1aOAO IL MS
daughter.
The young man had called or the
Rector in the morning, and, with much
confidence, requested his permission to
pay his addresses to his daughter, Miss
Millicent Bland, and had seemed decid
eddy surprised when that permission was
emphatically refused.
"You are barely twenty-five, Mr..
: Corcoran, and have not yet taken your
degree, and Milly is only Nineteen y
said the Rector impatiently. "Pray do
not let me have any repetition of such
childish ~nonsense;'' and poor Stephen,
considerably c~restfallen, had reluctantly
withdrawn.
MiIly was the eldest daughter and
this fresh worry was so novel and un-
preeedented that the Rector decided
upon taking the unusual step of con-
sulting his wife and seeking advice and
consolation in that rather hopeless quar-
ter; so he made his way upstairs to tue
charmingly aesthetic little boudoir where
Mrs. Bland carefully withdrew herself
from vulgar household cares and sought
distraction in the last fashionable three
volume novel.
The Rector's wife was a lady who
never forgot that she had been a beauty
and an heiress, and expected other peo-
pie to have equally retentive memorie S.
She had been suffering for the last two
years from an imaginary complaint with
mysterious complications, and the cares
of the family had fallen on the slender
shoulders of energetic, fair haired Milly.
The poor Rector, seated on a CHIP
pendale chair with uncompromising
angles, poured the tale of his q into
his wife's unsympathetic ear. and, as
the recital heightened, his jolly eounte-
nance gradually assumed the woe-be-
gone expression of some long-sufering
medieval saint.
sit is really unaccountable to me how
any girl of mine-and of yours, my
dear, "added the Rector, glancing round
the pretty room, should have such very
bad tastel'
"He is the only young man she has
ever seer in this wretehed little hole, -
answered Mrs. Bland.
'She certainly hasn't seen many
acquieseed her husband. But what
are we to do about it2"
''You had better send Milly away for
a few months" at length suggested his
wife.
The Canon's face heightened consid.
erably. Milly was his pet and comforter,
his right hand in all parish work, and
this prescription seemed to hun infinitely
WOrse than the malady.
"But where shall we send herr" he
inquired pathetically.
Margaret is very fond of her, and
will be glad of her society; let her go
there"
Margaret was an elder unmarried sis
ter of Mrs. Bland.
''If only young Corcoran weren't
such a sca~pegraeel" murmured the Rec