Connecticut western news., 1886-09-08

boy.
 The captain listened impassively, but Milly gave half-pained glance at the flower. "That was just like you, Stephen" she said, softly, and Stephen frightened for the first time that day.
 It seemed to Stephen, looking back, that his love for Milly had begun when he was boy of five and she was a baby in the cradle. He could not recollect the time when he did not prefer her to all other girls. At school he was her knight, his sled, his jack knife, his help, always at her service. Stephen taught her to skate, to row. It was he who brought her the first maple sugar, the first arbutus; he who took her on sleigh rides, and walked homo with her from church and the village tea parties. Milly absorbed these services not ungratefully, but as matter of course. She had been used to them from her babyhood, and could have almost as we'll dispensed with sun or air out of her life; but sun and air being never withdrawn, are rarely noticed or alluded to. '.Dear, good old Stephen" she called him. Now, it is not we'll for man to lavish himself on a woman who thinks of him only as "dear old Stephen"
 And now Stephen was doomed to stand by and see stranger appropriate the object of this lifelong devotion. He had sown, and another was to reap his labors. Day by day all that summer long the glamour grew and deepened. Captain Hallett's leave of absence seemed of the most elastic description, permit ting him to stay the entire season at Bay mouth. His mornings, his evenings, his moons, were spent with Milly. Stephen sickened at the inevitable gold-banded cap that met his eyes whenever he enter ed the house, and proved his rival in possession of the field. Milly greeted Stephen kindly always, but there was sense of interruption; he felt himself third party. Then he tried staying away; but that was worst of all, for his love did not notice his absence beyond a careless "What ages is it since we saw you, Stephen2" This state of affairs, of course, set people to talking, but Milly was blushingly indignant. "It was hard, 7" she declared, eff girl couldn't have a pleasant friend without having such things said." But her pretty poutings and pro- testings made little difference, and it was generally understood that the affair, If not an absolute engagement, amounted to Gan understanding" whatever that may mean.
 At last the long, lovely summer came to an end, as summers will. Scarlet boughs famed in the forests, golden-rod burned along the brook-sides, the birds flew, and with t1em Captain Hallett pre- pared for flight. His orders had come to report in Galveston, Texas, and his leave takings were hurried. The last moment was Milly's, and though no one knew the exact situation of affairs, it was taken for granted that another year would bring orange blossoms and wedding.
 Milly's own expectations were not so definite. No definite promise had passed between her and her lover; but she trusted him and waited brightly and hopefully. Letters came and went; the scarlet boughs burned into ashes and fell to the ground in pale heaps; then came snow and the winter, to be in turr scourged away by the whip of the fierce New England spring. Still Milly waited; but not so brightly now, for the letters came less regularly than at first. By and by they ceased altogether Weeks passed without word. Milly, with visions of yellow fever and Indian: chasing each other across her terriec brain, wrote and wrote again, but nc presage of the real danger which threat ened glanced over until one day, opening the newspaper, this met hel eyes:
 "At Galveston, Texas, by the Rev. Pierre St. Cloud, assisted by the Rev. Thomas Dix Captain Edward Hallett, U. s. A., an6 Blanche Emily, only daughter of the lat* Pierre St. Cloud of Pilatki, Florida. N | cards"
 Mrs. Graves upstairs heard no sound but when she went down Milly lay or the sofa white and rigid, the newspape, still clasped in her cold fingers. It wa long before her senses came back Her mother famed with anger but the girl hushed her with wear, l sob.
 eve were never really engaged, yo' know.n
 "Not engaged! Oh, Millyp
 But Milly turned her face to the wal
 and said no more.
 Baymouth was stirred to its depth
 next day by the news that Captain Hal
 lett was married to Southern lady, ant
 Milly Graves was down with typhoi,
 fever. Everyone wanted to help t
 nurse, above all, to know the particulars
 Such masses of bianc-mange and jell,
 were sent in that poor Mrs. Graves wa
 at her wits end to know how to dispos
 of them. But no one could readily aid
 not even poor Stephen, who scarcely lief
 the house day or night, or ate or slept
 till the crisis passed, and Milly was pro
 nounced out of danger.
 Out of danger, but it was weeks b
 fore she could sit up, and weeks longe