The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1886-09-18
The Village Beauty.
PHILADELPHIA Gull.

Dora Maxwell was the prettiest girl
in Dacre-a village which produced
crops OF pretty girls, just as naturally as
it did big rocks, shaded roads, cool
gsyeelo..snd picturesque and highly dan
Every one liked Dora. The young
men, because she was handsome and
unaffected; the girls because she was
amiable and always had the prettiest
patterns of any one in the village, and
was quite ready to lend them; and the
mammas on account of her substantial
charms-such broad meadows, such
goodly cattle, such stores of linen made
up by the hands of the thrifty Dora,
such massive silver and old-fashioned
china as belonged to Deacon Maxwell,
and a goodly portion of which must go
to his oldest and handsomest daughter,
would have made even a squint, red
hair and bad temper endurable in their
eyes.
So all the village regarded her as a
sort of personal property, and every
mother who had a manageable son
watched over her with vigilance and
interest truly surprising, and which
ought utterly to confound those who
don't believe in the natural goodness
and purity of human nature. Spite of
which in her twenty-third year, Dora
was Dora Maxwell still, a fact which she
didn't take at all to heart, though some
of the envious had commenced to whis-
per, 'old maid
1t was the first Sunday in June, a
warm, balmy, smiling, fragrant morn
ing, just deepening into noon, as the
deacon and his family came home from
church. Mrs. Maxwell had on her loose
dress and was tanning herself by the
window, while Dora and her two sisters,
having laid away their hats and parasols,
we're getting dinner, when their mother
exclaimed, Dear me, if there aint Eph
Schenck comm up the walk The
girls giggled and Dora Redeemed.
Eph Schenck was long, tall, sham
bling, freckled, red-haired youth, who
had disagreeable way of driving over
to church from his fathers farm, ten
miles distant, and then concluding to
take dinner with Deacon Maxwell. She
knew Just how it would be. He would
sit there in that corner by the eight day
clock. his chair tipped back, his huge
mouth open and his eyes fastened on
her in stupid admiration. He would
choke himself at dinner, and break out
in perspiration trying to say something
tender in her ear. He would 60 with
them to church and tumble up the steps
he would tread on her dress and tear it /;
he would insist on singing out of the
same book with her, and to doleful
tune of his own imagining; he would
stare at her during the sermon and wipe
his shining forehead alternately till he
had all the younger portion of the con-
gregation engaged in doing their besl
not to giggle. He would go back and
choke himself at tea, and after tea father
would go out to look after the chickens.
and mother and the girls to see about
the work, and then who could tell if he
wouldn't take it into his stupid head tc
| ask HCI W DC MlS. LPii OChChSh' bO"I
went the cloth from Dora's hand as thi:
last possibility presented itself to hel
mind and away she ran, like startled
deer, across the garden and out of lit
tie back gate into the broad meadow
where she almost rushed into the arm
of James Van Buskirk, the clever son O
good d-for-nothing father, who bade fai
to retrieve the position which his fathe
had lost, but being only half way up th'
hill, was only partially countenancet
by all those prudent and worthy peopl'
who will nearly shake your hand OF
when you are safely at the top.
Dora was about to pass him with
dignifed bow, but the young man
whose eyes were dancing with mischief
stopped her by gravely inquiring if sh
had the dyspepsia and was running TO
exercise.
mo sir, I am in a hurry tartly an