The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-09-15
T1e LilaCS.
BY MARGARET HUNT.
PART I.

PARI l.
 No lilacs ever seemed half so beau- tiful as those which hung over the wall that enclosed the patch of gar den-ground belonging to the Suther- land Villa, where the Falklands lived. The trees were old, gnarled, crippled, broken, and split, and no year passed without Margaret Falkland saying, "This must be the last year of our i- laos! It is impossible that they can go on Towering in this way any longer" And yet when next year came the trees seemed more vigorous than ever, and tossed their plumed blossoms and flung their fragrance about in still more generous profu- sion.
 They fourished to the injury of everything else in the garden, for they overshadowed the borders; but for the one week in which they were in perfection it was such perfection that there could never be any ques- tion of looping off projecting branches. They were coveted by all the flower loving passers-by. Every nefarious person in the neighborhood had his eye on them, and not unfre- quently his fingers. Tradesmen's boys with barrows drew them up on the pavement beneath the garden wall to form 8 basis of operation, and MT. Brown waited for his fish and MT. Smith for his fowls, while his pur- veyor's juvenile assistant stood on the barrow which was conveying them, plucked great handfuls of lilacs for himself and friends, tore down branches, and strewed the pavement with ruined fragments. Girls clam. bered on the wall at four in the morn- ing and leisurely culled the choicest clusters for their market baskets later on, and besides this, the Falkland household might have supplied itself with firewood for weeks by simply picking up the bits thrown as mis- siles at the unhappy flowers by boys who never succeeded in getting any of them at all.
 "lt is too bad w exclaimed pretty Miss Margaret one afternoon. "I can't bear to see those dear lilacs broken SO. It's shame to let them be ill.treated when they flower so splendidly! will go and work in the garden and then can protect them"
 She went into the garden and, of course, soon found plenty of work to do, and when the rustling of the boughs warned her of the pres- ence of an assailant, she went up to the spot and cried, "Leave those lilacs alone!" Sometimes boys climbed on the wall-it was tolera- ply high one-but for the most part they dropped back in a great fright when they heard her voice, or saw her, though some, perceiving that they had only girl to deal with, ob- stinately remained where they were until they had possessed themselves of handsome sample of the years blos- som.
 At first she only tried to impress them by her angry demeanor, and it seemed to her that that was all she could do, for If she went round to the outside in hope of finding . police man, the boys had disappeared long before she got there. Perhaps the same boys returned again and again ; anyhow, her demeanor evidently failed to impress, and attacks became more and more frequent. Shock. heads of hair with the sun shining through 1t appeared above the wall, hands were seen busily filling them- selves with flowers, and, say what she might, those hands went on filling themselves. She heard mocking laughter, and joyous exclamations over the booty. This goaded her to further effort, and she went into the house and got her umbrellas long,