Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1886-03-20
Written for The EVENING STAR.
"A LITTLE GHOST,
BY HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFoRD.
copyrighted, 1856. All rights reserved.l

such pretty one, Large, limped wondering
blue eyes with lashes almost long enough to
tangle, a skin with the rose-leaTs blush on 1T,
q mouth as sweet and innocent as a baby's.
and light, Ioose-fying hair haltringleted and
clustering round her white forehead, all made
her face look like one in some old marvel of
an ivory miniature. And then there was a
certain appeal to your tenderness in her very
ME, fairy creature she was; you could as
easily find fault with her seriously as with
sprite; and it was useless to try and reason
with her. as she could never by possibility see
anything but her own side of the case. She
had little other education than that given
by her desultory reading, although she could
paint and play and sing in pretty
fashion enough. She was an orphan, and had
been brought up chiefly in a boardingschool;
she had some property, sufficient for her needs
and uses, under guardianship, and Mr.. Sang
hurst was her guardian. What Mr.. Sanshurst
saw in her TO marry-this same little fluttering
thing. neither woman nor child nor eif-was
past our comprehension But he was going. to
marry her for all that; and now they were only
waiting for the arrival of her trousseau from
Paris, as she entirely refused to be married
with only homemade paraphernala. All we
could do was TO say we were thankful it was no
one of US that was going to marry her, which,
a. all of US, except the old Colonel, young
James and the Professor, were women, was
rather supererogatory on our part. Mr.. Sang
hurst, however seemed to be completely salts
ned with the arrangement. fortunately for both
of them, and she herself was the blitheSt, hap
piest little hitter-hutter of a thing you ever
saw-till Agnes Fairweather came.
We were all staying with Madame SangEurst
mere, at her place by the sea, where she usually
fingered till the close OF the year. taking to
iii the house with cheerful people who did not
mind autumnal gales. Madame Sanghurst mad
used to stay there in her husbands day, and
she could not bear to Geyiate from the routine
of those happy years of hers; and there were
al yra nile f- nf md Y1aa ant
OF course, Iselin-that was her pretty little
absurd name-was always a member of the
Sanghurst family; and one never knew, till
missing her, how much her novel ways, her
gaieties and gloons, and laughing tones and
and down the house, with all her own trifiing
but intense interests and strange connections
about other peoples interests, added to its
pleasures.
.Do you like that Miss Fairweather?- she
said To me, sitting one morning in the bay win
dow of my room, the red woodbines and the
blue october sky through their mesheS making
strong background to her delicate beauty. ~
don't see what Madame Sanghurst asked her
here for. i never shall when I'm Mrs. Sang
hurst. She's exactly what particularly dis
intellectual beings-sort of monsters. don't
think woman ought to know aaythingr'
why, yes i like her we'll enough" said,
replying to the original proposition. "She is
very magnificent in her manners-"
Yes. Shed be splendid head of house,
wouldn't she? ] daresay every one thinks how
much finer she'd be at the head OF Sanghurst
Manor here than this little fool. 1dlike to slap
her face for her! That's wnas I'd like to do!
"Oh, yes, you call it what you please, vulgar
and low and all therest. Perhaps am vulgar
cried. But / don't go about stealing other
women's lovers. And she's SUPERIOR so very
superiOri There's nothing she hasn't read-the
Hebrew Scriptures backward and the books of
the Sibyl- And there's nobody she hasn't seen,
from Prester John to Blind Tom. And there's
nowhere she hasn't been-down the crater of
Vesuvius and up the top of Cotopaxi. Perhaps
she hasn't been into Symmes Hole. / wish
shed go there and stay there. There's nothing,
of course, you can speak of that she doesn't
know about already. i mean to tell her some
time that when was a baby they took me up
in a balloon and We stopped at the house of the
man In the moon, ana she'll say, oh yes, she
spent a fortnight there once. and the cream was
delicious. She ought TO be at the head of
female college She knows too much to live
with white fOlks,'
'lselin! What feeble little spite, You ought
TO be ashamed OF your self. You growing
SO slangly that presently you won't be able to
tax properly at all, and you are injecting all
Not her, not her. wish I couldI' cried
Iseiin gleefully: Hear her talking greek roots
IN a woman I'd like to change them into a
couple of greek roots If knew Obir'
lou are encouraging very wrong feeling,"I
said, with severity, toward a most estimable
person"
'She's no business to be so estinable and SO
handsome. toor' burst forth IseIin. Look at
her great black eyes-they re bold enough for a
gyPsy's. And she has the color OF a gypsy
a III
me in the sun PII melt. And those teeth of
hers-I wish they were faise-they always put
me in mind OF a wolf or some other bird of prey.
Hi ask her TO go into the serf and drown her.
would If were big enough-and it wasn't TOO
cold On, isn't il dreadful TO be little as L
am, not equal to"
10 drowning the people You don't like But
really, Iselin, you mustn't talk SO. You will be
misunderstood. You would like Miss Fair
weather very much, If you knew her."
Il never should! / don't want to know her. I
don't want to Ike her. She is Just the sort OF a
deal too well for Inc TO want TO like her any.
On, why wasn't made tail and dark and rich
colored, with great black eyes and some sort Of
a mind in my body And all at once Iselin
was in a little heap on the floor crying like a
baby. "Oh. it's too bad for him to be tied to an
idiot like me- ought to set him free and tell
him TO marry Agnes Fairweather and let me
go OF and die somewhere don't care where
there she comes now. / know her step, it's just
like the step of the Empress of all the Indies
Hide me, quick, And don't you tell her word
say, or III Kill you! Yes, L willy! And before
could expOstuiate, and without waiting for any
hiding, Iselin had gone skipping out of the other
door, singing, Good morrow, good mother
with voice like little flute. OF course you
wonder now. as much as did, why a man SO
learned gracious, 50 elegant and faStidiOuS
as M Sanghurst wisheo 20 marry TINS marsh
watched men, as have, from "A spinster's post
OF observation, tor sixty years and over, you
will only come TO the conclusion that men are
a incomprehensible as they are unaccountabIe
II was quite evident that Iselin had chosen to
be Jealous of Miss Fairweather for no good
reason, OF course, for nothing could be more
circumspect than Mr.. Sanghurst's behavior.
but because she had been struck with the per-
ception of what she was and what she ought to
be herself, and with the feeling that Mr.. Sang
hurst would be much more fifty mated TO an
intellectual and cultured woman than to a fiib-
bertigibbet, and to her mind Mr.. Sanghurst's
real wishes and tastes and preferences in the
matter were not so important those which
she felt they ought to be.
Perhaps i should have given Mr. Sanehnrst
his mother some mint of the he
child'S feelings; but IL was something too med
diesone for me To do. SO only tried to console
her in a quiet way when she was quiyeriug
with excitement a. seeing Mr.. Sanghurst's and
Miss EairweatherS heads together over a Ger
man book, or Mr.. SaDghurst turning the music
for Miss Fairweather a. she sang in her glorious
voice that seemed too large ana noble Tor any-
thing but the music of oratorios, or when, worst
OF ali, he Joined her in a walk through the
shrUbbery or along the beach. He might hold a
book with any one OF all the rest of us or sing
with u, or drive or walk, il signified nothing
at all. But with Miss Fairweather-that was
quite een dIqTe chose. III that did not sig nify
anything, she felt very sure that IL ought TO do
50; and presently the affair began weighing on
her feelings so that she lost her appetite even
for her f&yorite snow-apples, in whose red skin
she had been setting her tiny white teeth
wherever You came across her, lost her voice
even Tor the Gilbert and Sullivan tunes lost
her pretty color, her light step, and went
creeping round the house like a little wan
shadow.
confess did think of speaking to Miss Fair
weather, and asking her ii she had not better
cut short her visit but on the W hole that seemed