The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1886-06-12
HER PHILOSOPHY.
How Priscilla paid the Penalty of
Being Too Happy"

Priscilla's beauty was of that shadowy
and spiritual kind that it took a good
while to find out that she was beauty at
all Certainly Priscilla's sisters, the Misses
Midway, had sublime faith in Priscilla's
charms; but the poor girl herself had spent
so much of her twenty-one years of life
trying to conform to the standard of be-
havior inculcated in the Misses Mildmay's
boarding and day school for young ladies
and little girls, that it had robbed her of
that delicious and ingenious vanity which
is the glorious inheritance of pretty young
things of her gender The Misses Mildmay
lived in an imposing four-story brick man
sion, in street of the sternest respectable
ity; there was not suspicion of the shop
in the stately front door and the heavily
-draped windows bore no advertising sign
The tall man-servant who opened the door
was loftily oblivious to the pupils who
sneaked in by the garden way. The Misses
Mildmay had made money in their school
and it was all for Priscilla. Had this
youngest birding in the dove-cot been like
her elder sisters nothing could have been
better contrived than the scheme of happi-
ness proposed to her. But unfortunately
Priscilla was no more Mildmay than she
was a Montmorency or Condo
wardly to the Mildmay model but.
natures original Priscilla was merry,
fiery young creature with peachy cheeks
and perpetual smile and good appetite
All these things, however, were kept in
abeyance-partcular her color and her
appetite. Had that dignifed footman been
cut up into juicy chops for Priscilla's break
fast, and that mahogany door been made
into rich soups for Priscillas dinner, she
would no doubt have lost some of that
pretty pallor, that pathetic look out of her
dark eyes; but the income of the Misses
Midway did not admit of the footman and
the mahogany door and the juicy chops
and rich soups too, so they skimped ON the
dinners, skimped on the amusements,
skimped on all those vanities that had
never had any charms for them, but which
Mother Nature, who is obstinate as well as
perverse, had meant for the younger sister.
. The Mildmay religion was necessarily of
a well-bred and repressive type; but Pris-
ella was given to getting up early and
walking long distances to early services,
and coming back pale and breathless, as if
she had passed through some exciting ex-
perience. And instead of reading the books
of devotion proposed by her sisters, she
had way of devouring Thomas a KemDiS
as if it contained all there was of truth
When the elder Miss Mildmay limited to
old DIR. Sunbury chat Priscillas piety was
not exactly of quiet, well-governed kind,
he smiled family
Don't trouble about the child. On rainy
Sundays | find myself watching her face
while they are singing the first hymn. 1t
makes me forget the dampness, GOODNESS
I'm susceptible to weather influences, and
on those occasions Priscilla's face helps
me.n
One afternoon DR.. Sunbury, walking
down the quiet streets of West HaTowby-
it was half town, half village-met Priscilla
hurrying along. She stopped suddenly
-tNnY, .l,NE
over her face and neck, while her pretty
eyes sought the ground. "Come, come"
said the old doctor, spontaneously
you've been going to hear that military
parson again.
Although Priscilla seemed embarrassed,
she had not walked and talked with DR..
Sunbury all these years without knowing
him; so she was not very much frightened
after all. Yes have, DR.. Sunbury," she
said, simply.
'Its the old story. Even if man has
once been soldier, he's exalted" DR..
Sunbury stopped.
But / do feel" said Priscilla, in y dis
tressed voice, las if it were kind of-in-
neutrality-suspicious., to leave st.
Johns"
'Whys" asked Dr. Sunbury, walking
soberly along, with his hands behind his
back.
lyon know answered Priscilla, re-
proachfully.
mo, l don't" said Dr. Sunbury. 81
always thought myself q liberal man. L
see no reason why you should think me
otherwise. Mr. Thorburn is an eloquent
preacher. ] am told that he has reformed
that colony of brick-makers ON the edge of
the town so that they have ceased to be the
terror of their neighbors, and come to
church in such crowds that the more re-
spectacle part of the congregation complain
they are crowded out by them. Why should
not the young and enthusiastic go to hear
him!n
Priscilla sighed. Priscilla took DR. Sun
bury's advice, and on weekdays and Sun
day afternoons forsook the comfortable
cushioned pews of St Johns for st. Philips
bare andsomewhat cherries interior. Mr..
Thorburn, and his hearers too, would prob
ably have been surprised to know that DR.
Sunbury had called him eloquent. He had
been "A soldier many more years than he had
been clergyman; and as trim military
mustache and a quick military walk, and
something suggestive of a sword in the
way he carried his clerical cane still chung
to him, so did a certain authoritative man
ner of speaking-a plain, soldier-like blunt
ness of speech, far removed from conven-
tional pulpit eloquence. SNOW, brethren, :"
he would say, very much in the tone of
''Attentionm
The tea tables of West Harrowby did not
see Mr. Thorburn often. Once month he
.dned with DR.. Suubury, and occasionally
DIR. Sunbury walked over to his brother
clergyman's modest lodgings in East Har-
rowby and smoked q pipe of peace with
him. Everybody knew Mr.. Thorbnrn's
history. He had met with the most awful
of domestic calamities-the wife whom he
loved had lost her mind. Clearly society
could give Mr. Thorburn no pleasure.