The Penn's Grove record., 1886-10-02
JUMPING TO A CONCLUSION.

The tumhus of Chadbury Hill was a
standing testimony to the good taste OF
prehistoric man. Situated IN one OF the
l~ovliest spots in the south of England, 1t
demonstrated to future ages that lie had
as much an eye for effect as any enter
prisIng owner of a public house with a
commanding cOrner position" On the
summit of the earth-mound the gaze
travelled over an unopposed range OF
corniields, meadows, woodlands, gleam-
ing hamlets, long wind-swept reaches of
chalk down encircled afar off by the
azure cincture of the ocean ClvillZa-
ton, as represented by the ubiquitous
steam engine, and smart red BRICK
Queen Anne villas and grasping lodging
house keepers, had not as yet. penetra-
ted to Chadbury. Though visited du-
ring summer by an eminent arch9olo-
gieal body intent on ransacking n
research, it had escaped the eye OF the
great picnicking public. No blackened
turf, no broken ginger beer bottles, or
gadding corks and straying papers and
scattered orange peel betrayed the pres
ence of AIRY and his Dlnah, out for a
day." The only human habitations for
miles around were the farmhouse at the
foot of the hill and a little cottage nest
ling in the hollow.
Harriet johnson and Helen Goring,
the two ladies who occupied n of the
cosey bay window sitting rooms set
aside for the use of the summer board
ers at the farm, had hitherto lodged
together in the stuffy apartments OF a
dingy London suburb. The former
was IN elderly art student whose PIC
lures had not, as yet, been accepted by
aught but he stingiest of dealers. The
latter, who was spending her vacation
at Chadbury, was a teacher at a neigh
boring high school. Miss Goring was a
Young woman well versed in all the isms
and ologies of the day, holding advanced
views after Darwin and Spencer, ana
equally advanced opinions as to the ultl-
mate destiny of her sex. An authority
on evolution and the environment, and
the survival of the f~ittest; an inconoclast
of the idols and superstitions OF an
effete past-with starry blue eyes,
fringed by dense black lashes, a delicate
complexion like a dog rose, and auburn
halr, streaked with multltudinous gold
threads like the twisted sunbeamS In a
brook. She was totally devoid of the
romance with which her friend brim-
med over. Nowadays n must look
for sentiment to the old, not to the
children of the iron age of science. The
fair reader who dropped the sympathetic
tear over Lara" 1.-The Corsair, and
s'The Fire Worshippers, " has for a de-
scendant a PRACTICAL young person who
prefers a treatise on sanitary laws to the
finest lyric that was eve penned. For
the rest, Helen oring waSa good, hard
working girl who sent liberal install
ments of her slender salary to augment
the half-pay on which a widow and
three little boys subsisted II a shabby
genteel cottage in Clifton.
In the winter, Chadbury Hill, swept
by the hurricane from the sea, by blind
ing snow-storms and indriving rain tor
rents, must have been bleak and desc
late to a degree. But on this majestic
August day it seemed the most desirable
of places, with swift lights and shadows
chasing each other over its thymy slopes
and the level country beneath bathed in
a yellow glory. After settling herself
and her shady hat on a campStool be-
hind a tall easel, on whose canvas she
yainly endeavored to portray a portion
of the magnificent panorama unrolled
at her feet. Miss Harriet was not lost
in one of her impossible day dreams OF
splendid pictures las yet undrawn)
accepted by a grateful Academy las yet
UNBORN. Meanwhile her young com
panion, in an antiquarian ecstasy up
and round the barrow, had wandered
down the farther side where the little
cottage sheltered itself under the shout
der of the hill. She had tapped and
Clipped with her geological hammer,
and observed the salient features of the
scene in the notebook, between whose
pages she carefully pressed a rare noun
tain plant, ignoring the nodding bare
bells as comparatively unworthy of a
botanist's regard, however cerulean
their tint. Presently she awakened TO
the fact that her excursion under the
hot August sun had rendered her eX-
cessively thirsty. The cottage pictur-
esquely delightful to an artists eye,
with its steep matched roof and white
washed walls, possessed for IN arch9lo-
gical mind full of the wattled huts of a
primitive epoch merely the Unitarian
advantage of possibly affording her a
drink of water. A venerable peasant
whose white locks strayed in patriarchal
fashion on an arcad an and antiquatted
smoek frock, sat on a three-legged stool
in the doorway basking in the sun.
Leaning his arms on his crutehes, he
surveyed the young lady with a smile of
encouraging beneyolence. In the dim
Dutch interior a woman was washing in
a capacious red tub, the multifarious
clothes that will eventually join their
comrades Oh the line at the back of the