The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1886-11-06


new painting teacher"
Pauline joined her father after this
interview with the mistress of the fash /
ionable school, and as she helped him
into his great coat she brushed speck
off his shoulder; she gave him his hat
and stick, and the went out together
to the bustl ng avenue, and walked
toward the park. She was like him,
tall and slight;it was from her mother
that she had inherited delicate features,
tine-grained, white skin and bright
brown hair and eyes. She could have
sat to the most fastdious of painters
for portrait of a lady, but no painter
could catch the charm of her smile, &C
cOmpaned as it often was by faint
fash in her cheeks that faded while
one was wondering what had lit up the
pale face. She looked somewhat older
than her years; she had been trained in
a school that makes girl of twenty a
woman. Her mother had taught her
to use a needle deity, and she could
fashion a dress or trim a bonnet to
accord well with her face or figure; she
had a true Frenchwoman' knack of
putting q roll of lace around her neck
or tying ribbon at her throat. For
her father, she cared in sort of natural
way, looking after his clothes and scold-
ing him gently about his collars, and
she honored him as she loved him, and
since her mothers death she had hardly
had companion save him. He was
always undemonstrative sometimes Sc
we're toward her, but she knew that she
was all that kept his heart beating in his
bosom.
She and her father talked but little as
they made their way to the avenue, for
it was a raw, clustering November day,
and the wind blew the dust hither and
thther in clouds, seeming to take
mischievous delight in whirling a hand
full against q girls face. When they
reached the park they got into a belt
line car, which, in its rounds on the
edge of the town, would carry them to
that Questionable quarter of New York
that lies near the East river They had
boarded for several years with the
Widow Terry, whose house was one of
a score called HarlCe row, in a street
not far from Beekman place. 1t is a
quiet spot, given over to modest dwell
ings, and in the river Just beyond lies
Blackwel's isIanI, with its great gray
buildings. The avenue about here S
lined W tn vulgar little shops, and the
owners, not a few of whom are Ger
mans, lounge in the doorways, lightly
clad in only shirt and trousers when the
weather IS warm, while Their wives sit
by the opened windows above, and are
on the alert to speak harsh words to the
children playing on the sidewalk. A
GROCERY, with a group OF idlers aboutit,
or butcher-shop with carcasses of calves
and pigs suspended in the windows to
tempt feeble appetite, is on every cor
ner u and down jingle the eter al
horse-cars, and great drays rumble over
the stone p vement from daybreak to
dark. The very policemen have caught
someth NC of the bedraggled look of the
neighborhood, and seem far-away cous-
ms to the neat, white-gloyed wearers of
the uniform who pilot ladies through
the throng of carriages below Madison
square. And Madison square is nearly
as foreign to the people of the First av-
enue as Mayfall or the Faubourg St.
, German.
In Harloe row, just around the corner,
no Sc and squalor give way to peace and
: decency, and the people who dwell in
the neat brick houses hold their
heads rather high when they cross
the avenue. Mrs. Terry with whom
the Valreys boarded, was q widow, who,
if she had not seen better days, had at
least never seen any worse ones, and
pr ded herself somewhat on her gentl-
ity. which to the outward eye consisted
chiefly in gong to church dressed in
black silk. Her house was too small to
accommodate many bOarders, and she
> was very particular about those whom
she fed and lodged. She could 90 to
bed soothed by Il sense of perfect stcur-
ity and unimpeachable decorum, sure
that no roisterng clerk would stumble
up her narrow staircase after midnight.
The Valreys occupied three tiny rooms
on the tn I'd floor, and on the second
were the Kanes, a sedate elderly floor
| walker and his ted-rdden wife. There
was room for one more boarder, and
Mr.. Kane had spoken about a young
man of his acquaintance who would be
glad to become a member of the fam ly
but Mrs. Terry did not like the idea of 8
young man, although she finally con
scented to receive this one on trial for {
forth ght.
mind YOU" she said, "if I smell
whisky about him, out he goes. Iwon'
have any cigarette-smokng, beer-drnk
ing boys in my house"
1t may be added just here that tn,
late Mr.. Terry had not been sober for
r month before death cut him down in tn
, bloom of manhood.
, In the same car with the Valreys is
, Young man whose dress indicates he ha
no mother, nor wife, nor sister to per
, form those little services of fasten ne
) button hanging by the eyelids, OF mend
, ing II shabby coat
When the car stopped to let her an
+ her father al ght, the young man alight
? ed too. and followed them up the stree
/ to Haroe row, even to the widow Terry
! door There NJ ValraV turned TO 100