Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1886-05-21
A LAKESIDE MUSING.
A PRETTY ROOM 1T WAS, WARM AND
RICH IN ITS coLoRlNGS.


woman's Dress-He Said, in Tones
Husky with Horror" Etc.
Natalie, m darling, Arthur is here"
The girl, a tall, lissome creature, with
great violet eyes in whose dusky depths
many a man had sought to read his fate,
rose quickly from the fauteuil on which
she had been lying when her mother
spoke, and paused for a moment ere she
entered the apartment where Arthur
Ainsleigh was pacing n~ervously to and fro.
A pretty room it was, warm and rich in
all its colorings, and as a great shaft of
sunshine streamed through the oriel win
dow its golden brilliancy was so softened
and mellowed by the tinted glass that it
fell in subdued radiance on statue and
vase, on painting and drapery, seeming at
last to lose itself in gentle blending with
the bright hues of an oriental rug which
lay in front of the fireplace.
To the westward, where in summer
stretched away in vernal beauty the lawn
that was such an attractive feature of Cy-
clone grange, there was little to be seen
save a great expanse of snow, across which
a pleasant woman, with a bundle of fagots,
gathered in the n~eighboring copse, On her
back, YEARLY trudged. A broken saw
buck that stood out gaunt and haggard
against an Implying sky was the only
jarring chord in an otherwise perfect
symphony.
Presently there came to Arthur Aims
leigh's off ear the soft frou-frou of a
woman's dress, and an instant later
Natilie Neversink, tall and stately as a
lily, in all the virgin beauty of her bud
ding womanhood, stood beside the only
man in all the wide wide world that she
had ever loved, and with a tender grace
that wa beyond compare gave to him
with the wine-red lips that %o'erhung her
dropping. sensitive mouth a rapturous,
clinging, do-not-move-or-you-will-break
your-halter kiss hat came like a revela-
ton to this man, who had spent nearly all
of his life in Boston.
And then the girl, placing her soft, white
arm caressingly about Arthur's neck,
looked up to him with pleading eyes in
which the mists of sorrow were fast gath
ering, and ere he could speak there glist-
ened on her damask cheek a tear-the salt
and silent emblem of a CHASTITY horror that
was haunting her life and that had COW
cred the erstwhile rose-tinted horizon of
her girlhood with the black pail of an over
whelming sorrow.
81 had such a terrible dream last night,
darling" she said, seeing in his eyes the
thoughts that his lips had not uttered
"such a weird, eerie dream, that ever since
it came to me | have thought of nothing
else"
What is it2" he asks, drawing her more
closely to him and fondling in lover fashion
the coronal of fluffy hair that nestles so
confidingly against the upper left-hand
pocket of his vest.
81 dreamed" the girl continued, that
while | was sitting here in the parlor
one bitterly cold day in the winter,
when the vino was moaning over
moor and through void as if to chant a
monody for the souls of those whose lives
its fierce embraces had taken away, there
came to me a cupid fat and rosy as l had
so often seen him depicted, but wearing
about him a curious garment. 1t was a
linen buster, and, s%trangest of all, it was
trimmed with fur, while in his hand the
little god held ~jauntily a silk hat. He
spoke no word to me, and when l asked
him why he was so queerly dressed ]
awoke. Was it not strange, Arthur"
YES" the man replied, land the vision
bodies you no good. 1t is an ancient belief
that when a maid sees Cupid in her dreams
he will in some measure assume the out
al dPpOdl Wv VI Tx lIldh HOln SAC
will wed. Dost believe this, Natalie?"
A convulsive shudder and a closer clasp
ing of his hand was her only answer.
"Methinks can interpret the vision, u
he continued.
"Do So" was the reply.
"You say that Cupid wore a duster2"
eyes"
"a linen dusteri"
"Yes.'
Trimmed with fur"
eyes"
"No shoes on his feet?"
None"
"And he had a stovepipe hat?"
Eyes"
at needs no sibyl," said Arthur, "tc
read this riddle. The answer is plain"
what is it," she asks.
Bending tenderly over her, he says in
tones that are husky with horror:
"You will marry an actorr-ChicagC
News.