Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1886-08-05
UNITED.

MISS IFlScllld tuTllS was ICrlV-tlye
years old, but no one would have
known it if she had not frankly con-
fessed to that age, and pleaded guilty
to the fact of being an old maid.
She was Il pleasant, kini-hearted
little body, with fresh. youthful face.
the cheeriest laugh imaginable and
smile that won the instant love of every
body.
She had comfortable income, lived
in a cosy cottage, and having nothing
else to do, was accomplished and chart
table-that is, she painted sketched,
made crazy quilts, and crocheted al
ghans, hammered brass plaques, and
manufactured all sorts of quaint and
wonderful articles of household adorn-
ment, and was president of three or four
charitable societies, ana made daily
round of visits to the humble homes of
a score of her pensioners.
People wondered why she had never
married, and some of her more intimate
friends ventured to ask her the ques-
ton.
She always replied with laugh and
these words, My Willie is oil DER the
sea-" in such jaunty, nonchalant
tone, that no one really believed that
there was an actual hesh-and-hlood
Willie over the seas for whose return
the bright-faced little spinster was
waiting patiently.
Visitors to her little cottage noticed a
crdyon portrait of young and good
looking man. which hung above the
manleI in her, cosy 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.. VIII
liam 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 reported he had
married titled lady--for his parents
were rich, and ut the time of the love-
making Miss Prsclla's surroundings
were very humble
In a drawer of her bureau, which she
seldom opened, there was q bundle OF
letters, yellow and faded with age, and
bunch OF wlthcred 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 sklllful
needle had wrought
She always wore u bunch OF them al
her throat when she went ont, and
nose-gay OF them nestled under her
rounded chin dis morning, when, with
an ailigalor-skIn reticule on her arm,
and CHEEKY suile on her face, she trip
ped down the steps of her cottage to be-
gin the daily round of visits among her
pensioners.
She was intensely practical in her
charity, and believed in helping only
those who made an effort to help them
selves.
Her first visit this morning was to
neat little house in a back street, where
lived Alma Zane, sole support of al IN
valid mother and halt-dozen little
brothers and sisters.
Alma was seventeen, rather pretty,
and previous 10 her acquaintance with
Miss Priscilla Curtis had worked in o
mill. where her earnings were just sutti-
cieut to keep shabby roof above their
heads and put bread-and-b into the
mouths of her hungry little brothers
and sisters.
She had fair education and re-
fined taste.
Miss Curtis helped her TO move into
the quiet little house, which wa9 cheap
~ but neatly furnished, aided her to put
warm clothing on the children and to
buy Il great casy-chair for the invalid
mother.
She taught Alma to embroider to
paint pretty little cards, and to fashion,
OUT OF cloln. paper. and wax. flowers 50
natural thai II required no great stretch
OF the Imagination to snlell their per-
fume.
Alma found ready sale for the product
of her deft fingers in the shops, and her
two oldest brothers hawked them from
door to door and in the street.
The income thus derived was double
that she had received IN the mill, and
enabled the family to live very comfort
ably.
Alma had 81 loyer-an honest. steady
young man. who worked in the mall
which she had left, and was, like her,
the sole support Of large family.
John Branerd was shrewd and intel
ligent, and seemed determined to rise
in the world, although he found u
pretty uphill work.
He studied hard At nights, and had
lately become much interested in con-
structing n model of a little appliance to
be added to the machinery OF loom,
that would save much labor.
He had shown his drawings Of the
Improvement to the mill-owner, and the
latter had promised to give him i've
hundred pounds for the invention IS