The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1889-12-19

basement, where the blinds were up and
maid-servant conspicuously clearing a
long table of its dinner perquisites and
setting it for the next mornings break
fast, so that he who ran might see;
while tie other half was dark, save for
tho flicker Of freight in the window of
the room in the second story, which
must: have been the nursery, from the
against the frosty panes, revealed ever
and anon by the winking light. You
see, one was boarding house.. and the
other was a home.
just as a shabby little woman with
her hands full of small paper parcels
turned in towards the steps of the board
ing-house, a sleigh came jingling gayly
up, and gentleman, tossing aside a
black fur robe, leaped out with rather
an agile step for so portly a figure, and
picking his way sprucely across the icy
pavement began to ascend the steps of
the other. He bore himself somewhat
pompously, and searched in his pocket
for his latch-key with ''monarch-of-all-
1-survey' air, heightened in effect by
the colored coachman who dismounted
and followed behind fairly lettering
under the weight of a pyramid of boxes
and packages piled high above his shin
ing beaver. But the search for the
latch-key was an empty form and moth
ing more, for the portly gentleman had
scarcely planted ono well-shod foot upon
the first stone step when the front door
flew open, as if its owner had touched Sc
cret spring, and troop of children came
frisking out, dancing :gingerly on their
tip-toes for fear of the light tall of snow,
and shaking their hands up and down
with cold and excitement.
Papa! papa! papa:' they screamed
in chorus; and then down they swooped
upon him like cavalcade of Arabs,
each one eager to capture the prize; and
up his legs they swarmed; and over his
arms they hung and swung; and hand
overland they climbed up his coat-tails;
so that as he crossed the: threshold of
his home there was very. little to be
seen Of the portly gentleman, in spite of
his size, and great deal to be seen of
his acrobatic progeny, in spite of theirs.
The great door closed, and left the
shabby little woman smiling to herself
as she hurried on. She entered the
boarding-house, fastened up three
fights of stairs with her spry, nervous
step, and coming to the attic, where two
small bedrooms had been partitioned off
for the use Of impecunious. lodgers,
opened the door of the front one, and
scurried in as though she were afraid of
being caught at it. Five minutes later
of Ill
net and sacque, and with the shabby wet
shoes replaced by a pair of shabby dry
ones, busily shipping twigs Of holly
from branch and tying them with bits
of scarlet ribbon.
''Tll put them at their places down in
that dismal dining-room," said the little
old maid, among whose oddities was
this one of talking aloud to herself;
'they may be suggestive. AT least it's
wee spark of Christmas, and 1 may
manage to fan up quite blaze before
night, who knows?"
And she shipped and tied, and Christ
mas ditties went jigging in her head,
and neighborly thoughts made pleasant
lines about her mouth, and her eyes
beamed like the eyes of good mother.
An odd place for neighborly thoughts,
you may say; for each individual in this
house-this collection of units"-was
as completely sundered from every other
individual in it, or out of it for that
matter, as if they rose and dressed and
fed themselves and went to bed in
different solar systems; always except
ing the little old maid Miss Nellie (she
was never called any thing but Miss
:cNellie'). =
For there was not one in that little
world Of alien souls that did not love
Miss Nellie; there was not one who had
not confded trouble to her sympa
thetic bosom. The irascible editor had
come to her with the scurrilous attacks
upon his regulations; the old. lady in the
false front had wept out her woes upor
her shoulder in manner far from false
the pretty young girl, who wrote on {
typewriter and battled single-handei
with the problems of work-a-day
world, came to the kind little body fol
motherly counsel and homeopathi,
remedies-the only ones Miss Nelli,
gave in paltry doses; the middle-aget
couple, who were known to differ fire.
quently and loudly, brought their quar-
rels to her for arbitration; the gallan
Major, who had been in the army ant
loved the ladies, had begged her t.
brighten his lonely lot with the ligh
of her perpetual presence, and when sh
had given him q gentle refusal 7ha'
taken it nobly with his hand on hi
heart, and logged her footsteps persist
emily thereafter; the poor young clerk
who had the other attic bedroom, an
couldn't manage to pay for that, an
who borrowed money of her and neve
paid it back, but was always meanin
to, came to her in fits of desperation
when he talked recklessly of ruin, an