The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1889-06-18
o N
By ROSE r ooKE.

| ClemenG1no honL was u very pr0GGy
! girl, and as sentimental as she was pretty.
Her pale oval face, with plastic features
that looked as If some easy hand had
moulded their fluent curves from a soft
pallid clay that never h~ardened-her vel
lew gray eyes and deep brown lashes,
her full lips, low forehead, and delicate
brows-all seemed surcharged with a
sort of vague pathos that was very etfec-
tive; an abundance of light brown hair,
waving and sllken, and beautiful teeth,
half disclosed by the languid mouth,
added also to the charms of q slight and
graceful figure.
She was one of those girls who suggest
a vine always; not a sturdy grape laden
with bacchant punches, or a classical
evergreen ivy; but rather a morning
glory, adorned with pink blooms-fowers
of an hour, that fade when the hot sun
strikes them, and close forever under
twilight shadows.
Her romantic name fitted her very
well; and nobody ever thought of short
ening it into robust "Clem," or familiar
"Clemmy;" if the syllables were too
long for any lazy tongue, it degenerated
at once into "Tina."
At school she always had at least eleven
bosom friends, who were horribly jealous
Of each other, as each in turn happened
to be the confidante of the day. There
were girls who called Clementine a fool,
and treated her with judicious scorn; but
they were mistaken-Clementine was not
a fool at all; she had the ordinary sense
of girls of her age, not common sense,
which is the rarest of all possessions and
beyond genius, but an average share Of
understanding. To be sure, she wrote
poetry-reams of it-and very poor
poetry at that, though being smooth,
melodious and harmless, it was greatly
admired by the readers of the Canterbury
Journal, and her candid schoolmates. But
if she did write poetry she learned her
lessons fairly well, and was quite a pro-
fcient in French: To be sure, Monsieur
Bourdaloue was desperately enamored of
Tina, and gave more than the prescribed
hours teaching to the class in which she
| belonged-a class of two-which may
account for her progress.
The worst thing about Clementine was
her fearful tendency, not a day passed
that she did not cry, and cry fuently,
good honest showers of crystal tears that
soaked her handkerchief and washed her
soft pale cheeks like a spring rain.
Nobody ever knew what she cried for;
she said herself she cried because she
couldn't help it. Nora Jones, n of the
strong-minded girls who called her silly,
said she was crying for the moon; GER
tainly there was no other known reason
for those tears. She had a good home, a
very loving father and mother, one sunny,
saucy sister, as unlike her as possible, yet
who regarded Tina with a deep reverence,
and said the editor of the Canterbury
Journal had been heard to call Clemen-
tine "a child of genius" and she guessed
she was. After O great while, Tina, in a
moment of confidence, owned to her
chief dearest friend that life was a bur-
den, love a vain dream, a delusive fiction,
and she herself should Ger tainly die
young, consumed by inward fires to
confirm which sentiments she quoted
Mrs. Hemans, Byron, l.. E. L., and M. F.
Upper with great huency and convincing
aptness, and scared poor Molly Hayes out
of a nights rest by asking her if she
should return from the spirit land to tell
her of it's heavenly Joys.
Molly did not like ghosts, and pro-
tested vehemently, but she need not have
been frightened, for Tina did not die at
all, though she ate enough pickles, candy
and loaf-cake to hasten her end if she had
been naturally a wholesome, hearty
creature.
No, this morbid sort of girl does not
die young; she grow VS. up into a weedy,
useless woman, and for all practical pur-
poses might as we'll be kept in the cellar
with nthor cnrO11fc Of oo0~n ,,ooFr1 x~oo.o+
ables.
Clementine finished her school days in
her usual health, graduated with some
honor, looking exit emely pretty in white
muslin and blue satin ribbons, with her
hair in long loose ringlets falling about
her shoulders, and one white rosebud
caught in the shining meshes above her
little ear. In this cheap and lovely COS
tune she sang q lovely little song of long
ago, Love not" with such tremulous
pathos that the audience almost cried,
and seven college students at the extreme
end of the hall felt very queer under
their waistcoats. Then Tina came out
into society. Not that there was much
society IN Canterbury, but whatever mild
dissipation that town afforded she shared
IN. Her father was well to do, and Tina
was always nicely dressed. She had
good taste, and affected soft clinging
fabrics, sometimes of delicate tints, but
never neutrals. The instinct of a woman
OF her sort is apt to be correct in such
matters, and she felt that drabs and grays
and dull browns did not suit her; warm,
yet light rose; turquoise blue, apple
green-a tint unknown to those abomin-
able aniline colors that have so cruelty
superseded the old artistic dye.-all
thes4, relieved against feecy white, or
sometimes a whole attire of softest lilac.
made her look like ga gentle flower" as
one youthful adorer declared in the burn
ing words of a valentine. Nor did she
show less fair, when winter came, in
robes of deepest crimson, emerald green,
or gentian blue; purple and yellow were