Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-02-01
MISS BRET'HDRT'0N
By HRS. HUMPHREY WARD,

| By MRS HUMPHREY WARD,
 worth something, or is it supcrfuous in the atrical matters and only indispensable in matters of painting? l think he caught the challenge in my eye, for he evidently felt himself in some little difficulty.
 "tOh, you couldn't he said, with a groan, you couldn't like that ball room-and that troubadour, heaven forgive us! Well, there must be something in it-there must be some thing in it. if it really gives you pleasure-I dare say there is we're so confoundedly up pish in the way we look at things If either of then, had q particle of drawing or a scrap of taste, if both of them weren't as bare as broomstick of the least vestige of gift, or any suspicion of knowledge, there might be good deal to say for them! Only, my dear Miss Bretherton, you see it's really not a mat ter of opinion; assure you it isn't. 1 could prove to you as plain as two and two make four, that Halfords figures don't join in the middle, and that Forths men and wor.en are as flat as my hand-there isn't back among them! And then the taste. and the color, and the claptrap idocy of the sentimentI No, don't think I can stand it. 1 am all for people getting enjoyment where they can,' with defiant look at me, and snapping their fin gers at the critics But one must draw the line somewhere. There's some art that's out of court from the beginning
 II couldn't resist it.
 "'Don't listen to him, Miss Bretherton,' cried. If l were you l wouldn't let him spoil your pleasure The great thing is to feel; defend your feeling against hinll It's worth more than this criticism
 Forbes eyes looked laughing daggers at me from under his shaggy white brows. Mrs. Stuart and Wallace kept their countenances to perfection; but 1 had him; there's no denying it.
 "'Oh, know nothing about it, said Isabel Bretherton, divinely unconscious of the little skirmish going around her. You must teach me, MT. Forbes. l only know what touches me, what I like-thats all know in anything
 lace, airily. We begin with "I lille' and II don't like" then we begin to be proud and make distinctions and find reasons; but the thing beats us, and we come back in the end to ''I lille' and II don't like"'
 "The lunch over, we strolled out along the common, through heather which as yet was a mere brown expanse of Howerless under growth and copes which overhead were canopy of golden oak leaf and carpeted underneath with primroses and the young upcurling bracken. Presently through a little wood we came upon pond lying wide and blue before us under the breezy May sky, its shores fringed with scented fir wood and the whole air alive with birds. We sat down under a pile of logs fresh cut and fragrant and talked away vigorously. It was little difficult often to keep the conversation on lines which did not exclude Miss Brethcrton Forbes, the Stuarts, Wallace and are accus- toned to be together, and one never realizes what a Freemasonry the intercourse even of a capital is until one tries to introduce an outsider into it. We talked tho theatre of course; the ways of different actors, the for tunes of managers Isabel Bretherton nat urally has as yet seen very little; her com ments were mainly personal and all of friendly, enthusiastic kind, for the pro- fession has been very cordial to her. A month or five weeks more and her engagement at the Caliope will be over. There are other theatres open to her, of course, and all the managers are at her feet; but she has set her heart upon going abroad for some time, and has, 1 imagine, made so much money this season that the family cannot in decency object to her having her own way. I am wild to get to Italy, she said to me in her emphatic, i'm petuous way. Sir Walter Rutherford has talked to me so much about 1t that I am be- ginning to dream of it. long to have done with London and be off! This English sun seems to me so chilly and she drew her win ter cloak about her with Q little shiver, al though the day was really an English summer day, and Mrs Stuart was ill cotton. I came from such warmth, and I loved it. have been making acquaintance with all sorts of horrors since came to London-face ache and rheumatism and colds-I scarcely knew there were such things in the world And never knew what 1t was to be tired before. Some times can hardly drag through my work hate it so; it makes me cross like naughty childr
 "'Do you know,' said, flinging myself down beside her on the grass and looking up at her, that it's altogether wronga Nature | never meant you to feel tired; it's mon- strous, it's against tho natural order of thingsr
 (" It's London,' she said with her little sigh and the dropping lid that is so prettily pathetic. I have the roar in my ears all day, and it seems to be hunming through my sleep at night. And then the crowd, and the hurry people are in, and the quickness and sharpness of things! But have only a few weeks more,' she added, brightening, and then by October l shall be more used to Europe-the climate and the life.'
 II am much impressed, and so is Mrs. Stuart, by the struggle her nervous strength IS luakluS dSdlISG LOuuOu. All ny QurS- ing of you, Marie, and of your mother has taught me to notice these things in women, and I find myself taking often very physical and medical view of Miss Brother ton. You see, it is case of northern tenn | perament and constitution relaxed by tropi- cal conditions, and then exposed once more in an exceptional degree to the strain and stress of northern life. rage when think of such a piece of physical excellence marred and dimmed by our harsh English struggle. | And all for what7 For commonplace, mako believe art, vulgarizng in the long run both to the artist and the publicl There is sense of tragic waste about it. Suppose London destroys her health-there are some signs of it-what O futile, ironical pathos there would be in it. long to step in, to 'have at somebody, to stop it.
 "A little incident later on threw 0 curious light upon her. We had moved on to the other side of the pond and were basking in the fir wood. The afternoon sun was slant ing through the branches on to the bosom of