New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1886-10-06
pies q bewitching little damsel through

PIES DeWlJchlng little damsel through
the shop window. Although he has
no idea Of buying anything he enters
the establishment and asks if he cam
not have a necktie or cambria pock-
ct handkerchief. The girl-all bows
and smiles-lays out large stock of
the required articles on the counter,
and while he stoops to examine them
his fingers touch hers and there is an
extraordinary amount of passion in
the sly love glances that he bestows
on her behind his fashionable binocie.
After half an hours delightful CONVEX
sation he winds up by the observation
that he regrets not being able to make
any purchases, as he can find nothing
that would suit him, and he bows his
way out into the street.
At 9 O'Clock that evening he is TAX
ing shelter under a portico not quite
five yards away from that Identical
shop door. The shutters are being
put up, and the Overwhelming little"
damsM sallies out on her way home
ward. He follows her steathily
through several streets, and brushing
past her he throws a sidelong look
over her shoulder into her pretty fea-
lures. She recognizes him and he
salutes her. After a desultory chit
chat that lasts for few minutes he
offers her his arm and she accepts it.
They both sailed onward until they
reached the door of the furnished lodg-
ing or hotel where heresides. He then
very politely bows and withdraws aft
er bidding her bonsoir.
The same scene is renewed for sever
al evenings afterwards. Eventually,
however, he suggests that as he loves
her ardently, she might come and
pot luck with him i'm his students
quarters. She would be his own '.pe-
tite femme, queen ofhis classic cham
der, near the Sorbonne, and she should
accompany him every Sunday for q
boating on the Siene, or a stroll
through the woods of St. Cloud, where
they could have their picnics in the
evening before returning to the Bal
Mabille where they would amuse them
selves asonly youth and beauty could.
And as for the future, why, they
should cleave to each other to the end.
Once his studies were finished and he
had passed his examinations, he
would lead her to the church and
Marie, and make an "honest woman
'of her." She would then be the wife
Of lawyer or a doctor, loved and re-
spected by an adoring husband, and
petted and caressed by society.
While being fascinated by this daz-
zhng tableau, and while she is COM
,paring her friendless, poverty stricken
existence with the rapturous and
eventually honorable one she would
enjoy in the arms of the youth by her
side, the kisses he is pouring on her
lips are becoming so irresistible that
she pitches all moral consideration to
the four winds of heaven, leaves her
garnet for the students chamber, and
enters ON that gay, rollicking life
peculiar to the habitues OF the Quar-
ter Latin. She has her midnight sup
pers, her outings on the Seine, her
picnics at st. Cloud, and her dances
at the Bal Mabille; while, of course,
still working daily behind the counter,
till her lover takes out his diploma,
when she becomes wild with Joy, al
most, at the bare idea of becoming
his wife.
He, however, has 10 idea of per-
forming his promises. One day, while
she is selling neckties and cambria
:handkerchiefs to stray. customers, be
is packing up his household goods and
taking the train for a country town,
where he pleads in a court house or
dawdles about a surgery g.
provincial lassie who has a 100, 600
franc fortune, and becoming in the
course '0ttime a very serious and very
respectable paterfamihes. Mean
while his victim, if she has mot COM
mitted suicide, has abandoned the
shopiin despair. She becomes famil-
lar with shame and infamy and loses
the last instincts OF lingering humani-
ty.
Such has been the fate, and such
will be the fate of many a Partisan
shop girl. The picture is by no means
an exaggerated one. Drawn, as it is,
from life, it affords another illustrar
ton of woman's credulity and the
perfdy and heartlessness OF man. It
is, in fact, only the old story older
than the pyramids of Egypt.