Nevada County picayune., 1886-06-16
THE VILLAGE BEAUTY.

duced crops of pretty girls just as naturally as it did big rocks, shad- ed roads, cool glens and pict- uresqne and highly dangerous waterfalls.
 Everyone liked Dora! The young men, because she was handsome and unaffected; the girls, because she Was amiable, and always had the prettiest patterns of anyone in the village, and was quito ready 10 lend them; and the maminas, on account of her substantial charms such broad meadows, such good ly cattle, such stores Oflinen made up by the hands of the thrifty Dora, such wealth of massive sil. yer and old fashioned china as be- longcd to Deacon Maxwell, and a goodly portion of which must go to his eldest and handsOmest daugh. ter, would have made even a squint. red hair and bad temper endurable in their eyes.
 So all the village regarded her as sort of personal property, and every mother who had marriage able son watched over her with Il vigilance and interest truly sur prising, and which ought utterly to cOnfOund those who don't believe in the natural goodness and purity of human nature. Spite of which, in her twenty third year, Dora WAS Dora Maxwell still-a fact which she didn't take at all to heart. though some of the enviaus had commenced to whisper, "old maid."
 It was the first Sunday in June, warm, bain,y. smiling, fragrant morn, just deepening into noon, ns the deacon and his family came home from church. Mrs. Maxwell had on her loose dress, and was flaming herself by the window, while Dora and her two sisters, having laid away thOir hats and parasols, wcro getting dinner, when their another exclaimed: "Dear me, <, ifthcre ain't Eph Schenck comin' up the the walk" Tue girls gig. gled, and Dora reddcned.
 Eph Schenck was long, tall, shambling, freckled, rcd-haired youth, who had d disaGreeable way of driving over to church from his fathers farm (ten miles distant) and then concluding to take din ncr with Deacon Maxwell. She knew just how it would ba. He would sit there, in that corner, by the eight-day clock, his chair tipped back, his huge mouth open aud his eyes fastened on her in stupid admiration. He would choke himself at dinner, aLd break out in s precipitation, trying to say something tender ill her ear. He would go withS6iem to church ans! unable up the steps; !ie would tread on her dress and tear it; he would insist on singing out of the same book with her, and to dole. full tune of his own imagining; he would stare at her during the ser moA, and wipe hi~ shining fore head, alternately until he had all the younger portion of the congre- gation engaged in doing their best not to gigsle. He would go back and choke himself at tea, and after tea father would go out to look af- ter the chickens, and mother and the girls to see about the work, and then who could tell if he wouldn't take it into his stupid head to ask her to be Mrs. Eph Shenck. Down wont the cloth from Dora's hand as this last dreadful possibility presented it. self to her mind, and away she ran, like startled deer, across the gar. den and out of a little back gate into the broad meadow, where In her haste she almost rushed into the arms of James Van Ruslikirk, the clever son of a good.fOr-neth- ing father, who hade fair to retrieve the position which his father had lost, but being oi'ly half way up the hill, was only partially counte- nanced by all those prudent and worthy people who will nearly shake yeHr hand of whsa you arc safely at the top.
 Dora was about to pass him with dignified bow, but the young man, whose dark eyes were dancing with mischief, stopped her, by
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