Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1886-07-31
IN RHETTA's GARDEN.
BY MARY L. B. BRANCH.
From Harper's Bazaar

er there than anywhere else, ana
great bursting pinks made the air
spicy, while other peoples were only
in bud. There were daffodils in the
grassy border, and blue-bells, and
blue spider-lillies. There were two
rose bushes, one cinnamon, and one
damask, while double sweet gilly-
flowers sowed themselves and came
up every year along with mignonette
and chrysanthemums.
1t was a sweet, fragrant, old-fash-
Toned little garden, which Rhetta's
mother had tended and taken pleas
ure in, and now it was Rhetta's.
There she worked all her spare half
hours, sowing and watering, wedding
and transplanting, till her little hands
were brown. and her cheeks like her
own cinnamon roses. Aunt Dorcas,
in the kitchen, used to wonder.
elbow on airth can that child be so
content all alone, out in her posy
bedw
But Rhetta was not so often alone
of late, since they had taken board
er. Ralph Calender found that the
pleasantest path to the house lay
through the little flower garden; and
when his jobs of copying failed to &C.
cupy his time, what could be more
natural than touse disclosure helping
the blushing gardener? 1t was he
who carried away all the weeds, di-
vided the white peony roots and re-
set them, and dug more thoroughly
than Rhetta ever could have done,
around the dear old rose bushes.
Over their work they fell to talk
ing, as young people will, and al
ready Rhetta's father began to watch
them a little anXiously above his
spectacles as he sat on the porch,
while one of the neighbors had re-
marked privately to Aunt Dorcas
that it was pity young Calender
was not a man of fortune as well as
of family. h..
In truth, riches had taken unto
themselves wings, and flown away
from the Callenders year before, SC
that Ralph, instead of becoming jun.
Tor partner in an old and prosperous
business, saw nothing before him but
what his two hands could earn, and
being totally unprepared for such 8
prospect, he had to take little time
to get used to it, and to find out
which way to turn. Meanwhile hi
had drifted to this suburban town
and while waiting to find situation
as clerk or accountant, did copying
to support himself, and boarded al
Rhetta's.
1t was the day they had been tcans
planting touch-me-nots, and RALPH
had thrown himself down under thu
plum tree for respite, while Rhett;
pulled the faded blossoms from &
primrose. He might have been mis-
anthropic enough at that moment i
he had chosen, for the last line o
copying lay upon the table, finished
with not so much as a hint of an or
der for any more. Worse than that
the clerks place he had been hoping
for, had that very morning been Civ
en- to another. If he had got it, h
could have spoken to Rhet:o at once
His glance follow / her as she ben
over her plants, her garden bonnie
dropping back from her bright brow
hair, and his fingers sought instinct
lively little ring that hid in his yes
pocket. The old Calender pride ha
come to this, that he only waited fC
the barest chance of being able
earn living, before he offered heal
and hand to pretty little Rhe,;
Wood, whose bonny face was all ht
doWry.
But he could not help le.,ing loN
color his words a little, when he sail
presently, to Rhetta, as he watchc
her:
"When l make my fortune, yC
shall have greenhouses and hot-bed
and gardens laid out on terraces"
"Like Colonel Porter's?" laugh6
Rhetta, blrshing over her trowe
"Oh! have you ever seen his plac
Mr.. Calender? It's over on the we
side"
81 think i have pissed it," a
swered the young man Indifferent
"Big trees, three terraces, ribbc
beds, and a peacock on the lawn.
that the place."
eyes; 'sn'tit splendidn eXclaim'
Rhetta. 81 always go that waywh'