The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1889-06-18

| were as incessant as the weather would
allow.
This particular year which we have to
| chronicle, Coventry was fuller of guests
than usual. Even Ned Wylde, the squire's
only son and heir, who had been abroad
as agent for q great wholesale firm in
New York every summer for many years,
and amassed much money thereby, but
never taken to himself a wife as yet
even this delightful being was coming
home this year.
at does beat ALL" exclaimed Aunt
Nabby, "to think Eddard Wylde is COM
ing back. I haven't set eyes On him,
really, except what you may call a peek
when he'd spend Thanksgiving here, for
several year."
"The squire is pleased enough" said
Grandpa Hyde; "he's stopping all the
folks in town to tell about it. Seems as
if he was a good deal broke of late years.
I'm glad Eddard's coming. I wish he
could bring his mind to settle down here
while the old man stays; 'twould be such
a comfort. He's all the child there is,
and Miss Wylde isn't very rugged either"
"Folks amt very apt to be rugged
come to her time of life, when they've
always been peepin', CURLY rejoined Aunt
like Eddard will settle down in old Gov
entry, if his folks do want him."
"Then he can't be very good, Aunt
Nabby," said Clementine, with unusual
vigor. 1T should despise a man who
thought more of money than his old pa
rents"
"For mercy's sakes! what has set you
off, Tiny? Men ain made after that pat
tern. They've got to work, and they
like to do it, I tell We. It's the order of
nature that old folks should go into the
heat and burden of the day. ,--@
"But I thought he had enough money"
Enough money!" screamed Aunt
Nabby, with keen berision; "enough
money! When you you see a young fell
Ter not thirty years old who's ready to
say he's got enough money, just you put
him in a cage and send him down to York
to the museum. He'll be the biggest cur
iosity there"
Tina turned away, disguised with Aunt
Nabby's worldly wisdom, and wentu up to
her room to bathe her rufded plumes in
the diviner air of 'Thaddeus of Warsaw"
"a book she had just discovered in the
old garrett. How she would have SILVER
ed to hear Aunt Nauby chuckle as she
left the
CANT she a high-fyer, Reuben? l
wouldn't ask no better than for her to
marry Eddard Wylde. She wants money
to keep her alive as much as a new
chicken wants broodin'; but she thinks
it's fine to turn up her hose at it, poor
little ignorant creetur!"
But Grandpa Hyde and Aunt Nabby
both were wise enough to say no more.
In due time Clementine met Ned Wylde
and was introduced to him. He was a
tall, ~well-looking young fellow with good
manners and a kind heart; but Tina from
the first ~sedulously avoided him. She
was sure money had spoiled him, and
that he would lay every common civility
from a young lady to a desire to share
that money.
There was a certain grain of truth in
this, for there was not another young
girl in Coventry who was not too glad to
talk, or dance, or drive, OF row with Mr..
Wylde-not one whom he could not have
married, Miss Nabby said, and she was
partly in the right. Some were prettier
than Tina, many more eloquent and bet
ter bred; but, with the innate perversity
of the SEX, he showed very soon a marked
preference for Miss Kents society, be-
cause she offered him a new sensation
that of being Stunned, aud if any n
may write the word, snubbed.
Tina had, inded, set her face as a flint
against him, for while she was forced to
admit the sense, the manliness, the wit
and the consideration that would have
charmed her had he been a poor poet or
a struggling aspirant for political honors,
she felt all the more obliged to turn away
from his pleasing society, lest her theories
should tremble and perhaps totter to their
fall
But nothing is certain in this world;
like the man who awoke and found him
self famous one morning, poor Tina was
at last conscious that she loved Ned
Wylde more than any creature on earth.
She stood at her window n day, watch
ing him through her closed blinds as he
rode by on a thoroughbred colt his
father had bought for him before he came
to Coventry; the creature was almost
manageable, and if Ned had not been a
good horseman, would have thrown him
then and there. Tina was sure he was
on the brink of death, and everything
grew black before her. When she looked
up again it was from a pillow on the
floor, aud Aunt Nabby was sprinkling
her face with camphor.
After this rev alation to herself it was
useless to try to meet Ned Wylde with
calmness; the l~ovliest tea-rose tint would
steal across her pure pale cheek, and the
dark lashes fall over her innocent eyes.
Nature betrayed her in spite of herself,
and when Nd Wylde fairly asked her
to love and marry him, he was not only
grieved but astonished to receive a dis
tinct but curt refusal.
That night Tina cried herself to sleep.
The consciousness of having been true to
her lofty theories was no sort of comfort
to her; in this desolate hour all that high
minded contempt of money did not sup