The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1890-07-19
A MODERN PARADISE.
The Story of Mooing and Winning
in Beautiful Santa Cruz.

of small means and good parentage was
looking for a paradise place where
lovely scenes, tempered winds and the
sweetness Of prolonged summer would
predominant. He had lamented lost
paradises, invented ideal paradises ano
converted real paradises into veritable
pande,noniurns. Never yet had the real
being Of a woman figured in his exist
ence, though he dreamed of the gentle
slopes Of Eden, and, as he rested, Tapped
in softness and ease, yielding to the gem
tleness Of the skies and the modest WOO
ings of the winds, q pale, refined and
beautiful playfully touched his
tired eyelids with her hand and caressed
the willing dreamer. A woman is not
in everything, but she is coexistent with
our dreams. Gilbert Stockwell was a
dreamer. The magical charms of al
ideal existence captivated him.
Midway between Santa Cruz and the
Big Trees, where the hills reach nearest
heaven, where the trees in the gulch
grow tall, as if ambitious to overtop the
mountains, where the flowers grow beau
Mfully-there, away up on the side of
the mountain, two forms bend ungrace-
fully over a little flower, hat touches
hat, and if it were not for the Gains
borough style ear would touch ear. We
will not describe the couple. Any in
telligent reader knows the twain are
botanizing and the scenery round about
them is more beautiful than any hero or
heroine of song or story. They pull the
flower from the ground, and seating
themselves on a barkless log examine its
roots, hirsute stem, calyx, petals, seeds,
and step by step trace its marks from
family to branch, from general to par
t~icu1ar, and in delight exclaim ssRightl'
Another flower has been analysed. He
holds her hand in his to protect the deli
cate skin from the winged insect of the
mountain.
Gilbert Stockwell was in paradise, and
Nellie Alison was with him. He had
not gone to Santa Cruz in vain. Six
weeks ago he had met Nellie Alison, and
the introduction was the beginning of
an infatuation that ended only when the
wrinkles of time elevated the infatuation
to thoughtful reverence.
Nellie Alison's face was to mankind
what poetry is to literature. The over
attention of a fashionable mother had
made her a frnil, delicate girl, but the
milliner supplied what nature wanted
to, and instead of being an uniformed
lady she looked at least a well developed
woman. She had more intelligence than
beauty, more sparkle in heFNit than in
her eyes. She had a hearty but it was
modern, that is, rather perverse, and a
mind, but it was filled with the muta-
ton of fashions. We will not blame
the daughter, but condemn the mother.
Nellie Alison was two-and-twenty, the
age when a nature will stand the test of
analysis and prove its real worth. But
we have left Gilbert holding Nellie's
hand all this time. Circumstances, you
know, must adjust themselves to human
feelings.
They arose. The scene was a lovely
one. Away beneath them a creek muir
INJURED q song. The tall trees of the
gulch, the dangerous steepness Of the
slope, the stiffness of the hills, the
grandeur of the scenery, the stern hills
separating, as if in anger, at the base,
and proudly receding, until from top to
top great spaces interviewed; the delicate
flower, too weak to bear up the pearly
drops Of dew. All, the sublimity Of the
hills. Who can measure the dimensions
Of the beautiful as the eye wanders from
stream to hilltop, from hilltop to stream,
the eye ever meeting delicate touches of
natures finest, grandest and most beau
tiful objects? The ocean air seems to
be caught in the branches Of the trees,
purified by mixing with the mountain
breeze, and given s a delicacy to the
strollers.
Don't press my hand so hard cried
Nellie.
excuse me, l thought 1 was holding
my cane,'' replied Gilbert, while Nellie
looked unutterable things.
"Come let us return to the hotel;' and
not waiting for his consent she started
off at a break-your-arm speed.
"Wait," cried Gilbert. ST want to
talk to you about the lady you said loved
me. Tell me the lady's name, won't your
81 am too modest" was her laughing
reply.
He reached out his arm for her, but
she was not there. He turned, and like
a petulant boy showed her the dimen-
sions of his back.
colbert, / will fasten a columbine in
the hair Of the young lady who loves
you, and tonight at the hop your curl
osity will be satisfied" said Nellie, as
she plucked o bunch of columbines.
az hope I will see the combine in your
own hair"
perhaps so; wait and see."
Preparations had been made to make
this the grandest hop of the season. The
social gatherings at seaside resorts are
rather insignificant affairs, unless the
men are firts and the women coquettes.
But inasmuch as the contingency is
dropped and a d~eclarative proposition is
true at a seaside resort, the hops are very
entertaining.
The hall at the hotel was beautifully
decorated with flowers, pretty women
and handsome men. Gilbert Stockwell
was there, anxious and waiting the COM
ing Of the one wearing the columbine.
A dozen handsome ladies entered. In
agine his surprise when each one of them
wore the identical columbine that Nellie