The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1886-10-16


Miss Priscilla Curtis was forty
five years old, but no one would
have known it if she had not frank
ly confessed to that age, and pleaded
guilty to the fact of being an old
maid.
She was pleasant, kind hearted
little body, with a fresh youthful
face, the cheeriest laugh imaginable
and smile that won the instant
love of everybody.
She had a comfortable income,
lived in a little cottage, and having
nothing else to do, was accom-
plished and charitable-that is,
she painted, sketched, made crazy
quilts, and crocheted afghans, ham
mered brass plaques, and manu-
factured all sorts of quaint and
wonderful articles of house adorn-
ment, and was president of three
or four charitable societies, and
made round of visits to the hum
BILE homes of a score of her pen
sioners.
People wondered why she had
never married, and some Of her
more intimate friends ventured to
ask her the question.
She always replied with a laugh
and these words, "My Willie is off
DER the sea-" in such a jaunty
nonchalant tone, that no one really
believed that there was an actual
hesh-and- blood Willie over the seas
for whose return tie bright-faced
little spinster was waiting patiently
Visitors to her little cottage had
noticed crayon portrait of a young
and good-looking man which hung
above the mantelin her cozy parlor
but they thought it the picture OF
some relative, and never connected
him with the mysterious Willie.
1t was in reality the face of Mr.
William Arnold, and he and Miss
Priscilla Curtis had been lovers
when he was a young man OF
twenty and she a girl of seventeen
Cruel parents had separated them
and he had gone away across the
seas, where, it was afterward re-
ported. he had married a titled lady
for his parents were rich, and at
the time Of the lOve-making Miss
Priscilla's surroundings were very
humble.
In a drawer of her bureau, which
was seldom opened, there was 6
bundle of letters, yellow with age
and a bunch of withere1 violets.
The violet was her favorite flower
and she had great plots of them in
her conservatory, and they were the
device embroidered on all the little
articles of household adornment
that her skilful needle had wrought
She always wore bunch of then
at her throat when she went out
and nosegay ofthem nestled under
her rounded chin this morning
when, with an alligator skin reticult
on her arm and a CHEEKY smile OF
her face, she tripped down the steps
of her cottage to begin the daily
round of visits among her pen
siOners.
She was intensely practical II
her charity, and believed in helping
only those who made an effort t.
help themselves.
Her first visit this morning was
to neat. little house in back
street, where lived Alma Zane, sole
support of an invalid mother and
half-dozen little brothers and sisters
Alma was seventeen, rather pret
ty, and previous to her acquaint
ance with Miss Priscilla Curtis, hae
worked in a mill, where her earn
ings were just sufficient to keep
shabby roof above their heads ant
put bread-and-butter into tn
mouths of her hungry little broth
ers and sisters.
She had a fine education and I
refined taste.
Miss Custis helped her to NOV
into the quiet little house, which
was cheaply bnt neatly furnished
aided to put warm clothing on .th'
children, and to buy a great easy
chair for the invalid mother.
She taught Alma to embroider
to paint pretty little cards, and t
fashion, out Of cloth, paper ant
wax, flowers 80 natural that it re
ouired no great stretch of the imag
ination to smell their perfume.