The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-06-02
WEAVING A RoMANcK.
Listeaer, in Rosten transcript,

l Listener, in Boston Transcript,
 Apropos of the matter of the em, ployment of women and girls iI down town duties in offices as stenog.
 rAnhers and tho like, tho Listener oan'
 not get out of his eyes the picture ot
 young woman whom he often meetI
 whon he happens to pass through 6 certain street in the morning. She is
 apparently on her way to daily eSn. ployment and her face from morning
 to morning, from month to month
 1t is months since the Listener first met her in this street-alwAya wears the same troubled, pathetic, wound ing expression that haunts ono with . lingering sense of pain. She Is always In haste, as if one duty had kept her
 to the last moment and left her scarcely time to meet the othcr--an importunate exaction pulling her at either end of the journey. She secs no one apparently, though her head Is half turHed, after a peculiar way of her own; she seems to be looking ua at something in the distance, though there Is no fixed object there to attract her; and the look is always tho same, no matter how far along the strect one may meet her. She Is rather tall in stature and handsome of figure, with the slightest of stoops. As to her dress, it is of that sort which puzzles tho masculine observer to toll whether 1t Is of poor material skillfnlly made. with simple good taste, or whether It is really more costly; certainly 1t Is not shabby, and 1t is not mourning. But her face Is the thing that upward turn of the gray-blue eyes Is not tho only thing about 1t that suggests ap- peal. Her lips arc delicately turned In curve that seems to indicate that 1t Is impossible that the question "Why should 1t be?" should escape expression upon her face. The con- plexion is bit too pale, it seems, for perfect health and yet the skin is wonderfully clear and beautiful, and there Is no other evidence of III health. Her very nose helps the general sx- pression; it's slight tlp-tiltelness, "like the petal of a flower" contrib utes to the mute appeal of all her iea- lures. Is 1t all an accident of facial conformationp Has the girls face been made a tender iliad of pain sim ply by freak of natures work2 The Listener has no idea that he will aver know. But the girl goes on from day to day, hastening to her work in crowded, mechanical part of tho city. looking neither to the right nor 10 the left, regarding nothing upon tho street, and always looking up to that invisible something with tho same mute appeal reflected in features and attitude.
 One may imagine, in such case, a cruel wrong to which this delicate victim must submit. One may weave about her, as he may about many an- other being that he meets upon the street, romance to pull at the worlds heart strings. But whatever her hurt may be, no ono may do anything to ease it. So much alone may one go through the crowded town; with troubles not to be hidden, perhaps, but not to bc known to any sympa- thy that may lcs son them! But there Is something in the very helplessness of the inward woe of unknown per sons that in natures of sensibility calls out tLe exercise of an honest benevo- lence towards all the world, which reacts upon all so that we are better of, no doubt, taking us as whole, notwithstanding the barriers of con- vention and the ibaccessibiiity of in- dividual grief, for this crowdiDg together in great cities tsan we would be in rustic solitudes. The loneliness of the crowd Is, however, the most melancholy of all forms of loneliness in its immediate demonstration--in- finitely worse than that of the remot- est woods and though one's pain may soften the mass, and in some degree make the crowded world about him a little kindlier and mellower, 1t is not at all personal relief. But what man or woman, seeing such a girl as the Listener has described going daily to her task, could utter q word that would make her burden-be 1t weari. ness, deprivation, absence from dear one, insult from an employer, or physical pain-harder to bear?
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