Wichita eagle., 1890-01-08
PINK'S LAST ILLUSION.

t'It is, suppose, as likely to come to
anything as your previous destinations.
You are certainly an odd person, James"
''Oh, no, Maria; this is quite different.
l assure you | have learned caution with
experience; and if the world has taught
no other lesson, it has taught me that
the eyes of a man are really the least
trustworthy of the faculties with which
he has been endowed"
f'What nonsensel As if you are ever
likely to come to such pitch of wisdom.
Why, it was but last year, at Oban, you
remember, that you fell in love with a
woman who was a grandmother over
and over again. She tricked you as
easily as if you had been babe, what
with her paint and powder, false hair
and false teeth. And | can't say you did
yourself credit when you vowed to me
that you were about to offer your hand
and what NAV remain of your heart to a
person who proved to be two-thirds be-
reft of her wits. l don't know which
county asylum she now resides in, but l
dare say you know; and, indeed, know
ing you as do, it really would not sur
prise me to be told that you were still in
correspondence with her. There's one
thing: the letters on either side would
have about an equal share of sense in
them"
You are too monstrOus, Maria, to go
on in that way" protested James.
"And now," continued his sister, ''you
come with fresh story about siren
sitting somewhere at the receipt of Gus
tom, with the loveliest complexion you
ever beheld, and demeanor the perfec-
ton of modesty, simplicity and grace.
A deal you know about compilations;
though l warrant, if it is given to men to
know the qualities they most excel in,
you ought to be remarkable judge of
the creatures simplicity"
1t was in this way. James Pink, who
was a country lawyer under no obliga
ton to work for a livelihood, passed
three or four months of each year of his
life in travelling about the world. During
his travels he periodically fell in love.
He was accompanied by his sister, Maria,
lady of 45 TO 90, who sympathized with
none of her brothers tastes. Least of all
was she by nature disposed to view char
itably his love fancies. In fact, they
caused her intense irritation. Why this
should have been so we cannot tell. But
the truth was that no sooner did her
brother begin, timidly enough, one or
other of his stories about new impress
sion made upon his heart, than she was
wont to toss her head and otherwise
manifest a little temper, blamable in a
girl of II or 13, but very singular in a
woman of mature age.
Upon this occasion they were at Ma
plies. 1t was spring, and Easter. They
had viewed with complacence the pet
lambs which the Neapolitan children are
won't to lead about the streets during the
latter days of Lent, fattening them upon
grass, cabbage leaves or what not, in
readiness for the butchers knife On Eas-
ter eve. Neither the one nor the other
of them had grown at all cosmopolitan
in the course of their ten or twelve
years travel upon the Continent. Each
regarded with horror those customs of a
country which differed from the customs
of their own small village in the north of
England.
They do not do that sort of thing in
Carsforth,' was with James or Maria
Pink a common sort of condemnation,
Indicative of the extreme of diSpraise.
If either of them was disposed to be at
all liberal in his or her estimate of a world
which differed from Carsforth, it was
James Pink But he was cautious TO keep
his opinions TO himself.
Thus they had driven to and fro in
Naples. with their eyes fixed upon the
smoke of Nesuvius when NesuviuS was
in sight. and at other times with express
sions of pain upon their honest faces as
they remarked the CRIME and filth which
accompany the color and vivacity Of
Neapolitan life Maria Pink on these