The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1886-08-19

had fallen nom MS eye, anu lhe DuInehesS
had sunk out of his tone. A pallor was steal
ing over his face, and he was fast turning
gray As one of his parishioners who made
her living by laundry work said, "He looked
like a gown that had been to the wash;" the
colors had run: what remained was himself
and not himself.
And now, disregarding for a moment our
small chronology, let me dismiss the rector
from this tale, where, indeed, he has little
more to do.
Poor Sophia chung to him more than most
of his parishioners and she found real
pleasure in his society, because it seemed to
be kind of remote contact with PerclVaL
The bedroom where Percival had slept from
hoyhood was in that house. The books he
had read were on the shelves. Here he used
to sit at dinner There was the garden walk
where he was wont to saunter with his pipe
She knew the very peg where his hat used to
hang. Somehow he did not seem quite so far
away when she was in the precincts OF his
own home, and the rector's dispirited talk
had a certain liveliness for her, because he
was Percival's father Occasionally, too, she
would get glimpse at her absent lad HIM
self. For instance, one day, as they were
walking together to the garden gate, the
rector said:
Percy planted that rose"
Next week, as they went the same way,
Sophia stopped beside the rose tree to pluck
off few withered leaves and make the pla1
look trim. Mr. Brent stopping with he
said in his distracted way:
"I never told you; Percival planted tat
rosen
He never told her! Why, by that time she
knew how many leaves were on it, and could
spell its name and knew its prospect of life,
having become for Percival's sake perfect
horticultural actuary.
Then another day the rector said hstlessly
for he never joked with her about his son,
and indeed seemed to have only faint re-
membrance Of that connection:
II heard from Percy this morning; would
you care to hear his letter"
Sophia, who would have lived on bread and
water for week rather than miss one line
her darling wrote, said, trying with miserable
affectation to initiate the rector's apathetlc
tone:
eyes if it is not troubling you"
"Perhaps," Mr. Brent said, "as you don't
seem greatly to care for it, we need not read
this one, but wait for the next"
He SAID This quite innocently, but he put
Sophia in dreadful fix. With the instinct
of true generalship, however, she resolved TO
recover her lost position by bold stroke.
~ would not miss hearing it for the world,
she said audaciously. 20, do read it"
And the rector, looking up with faint
smile, like man who remembers something,
took the letter out and read it through.
In none of these letters did Percy mention
her name, until three years after his depart
ure. when one day the rector read this line:
If you eUer see the girl 'cho lCds once my
little Sophia, giUe her my leue'
He read it mechanically, as he did every
thing now; then, holding the letter with
loose fingers, it slipped from him and
SKINNED down under the table, and presently
he was called from the room. Sophia dropped
on her knees and caught the sheet up, and
read the line again:
"If you eUer see the girl tUho ecds once my
little Sophia giue her my lore
Bless me, how she kissed that sheet! 1t got
all the love kisses that had been ripening on
her lips for six and thirty months Had it
been the age Of transformation that sheet
would surely have turned into lover under
the transmitting power of those kisses And
then Miss Sophia, who had terribly tender
conscience of her own, looked at the letter,
and colored up at a certain suggestion OF her
own mind, and wondered would it be very
wrong, and would the rector ever find it out,
and was it very mean of her to do it In the
hope that he would never find it outs And,
deciding on action she nicely tore Off the
finest little morsel of the paper, where ON the
last line these precious words were inscr1bedi
and she slipped the shred into her watch case,
where she could look at it night and morning.
The little girl that tDdS my Sophia. "Ihat
is! that shall be until you bid her cease" she
Said thousand times, as if that morsel of
paper were his living spokesman. Truly, the
girl was very much in love, and absence
made her heart grow fonder, which is not
usual with either male or female hearts, un-
less l see the world wrongly altogether.
About this time Sophia-and not Sophia
only, but all of us-began to notice that Mr..
Brent looked paler than usual, walked with
slight drag of the right foot, and sometimes
missed a word out Of sentence without
being aware of it. Again, he would observe
the mistake, and correct it with an appear
ance of irritation. "Brain mischief going
on" old Sparker whispered And he was
right; for one Sunday evening, after preach
ing, the rector suddenly became speechless in
the vestry, and lost his power of motion.
He never spoke syllable again; and even
when he opened his eyes there was no reason
in them. A dreadful storm Of wind and rain
came on that night, and blew the golden cock
from off the church steeple, and some Of the
masonry with it. The tempest ragged round
the rectory garden, and uprooted two great
. elm trees, and cast them across the lawn IN
gigantic ruin. Meanwhile the rector lay as
quiet as if summer breeze was blowing.
There was no storm that could roar loud
enough to disturb his sleep. And in the
morning, when we awoke to see what the
| wind had done in our gardens and parks, we
| heard our kind-hearted little rector had de-
| parted from us forever, just while the storm
was uttering its tiercest blast.
| We said that we could have better spared a
better man, looked grave a moment, re-
marked how uncertain life is, and then
! talked of the storm, and forgot the rector.
J But to Sophia his death was terrible sor-
! row. Somehow Percival seemed gone; she
! would hear no more about him, nor have the
remote but still very actual comfort Of talk
ing with his father and seeing his old haunts.
She had borne trials already, and other trials
awaited her; but this was, after all, one OF
the sorest she ever felt She grew lonely,
sad, doubling; began to think Percy would
forget her; tried valiantly to battle with her
fears; cried many hours when she was alone,
then wiped her eyes and went downstairs
Smilingly; but it was an aching heart that
beat in her breast And the body of the rec
tor was laid to sleep In the churchyard, and
his successor came. The king was dead, and
the cry was, Long live the king!" for we
were all pleased with our new parson. He
preached sermons shorter by five minutes
than those of Mr.. Brent. He kept two curates
good-looking bachelors. He worked the
parish well Soy confessed every one that
the loss of poor Brent was gain to us
especially these last few years, we said, wher
] A.n,,laln o,tnrnnrnn him and thie hrnir f1nia