Waterbury evening Democrat., 1890-09-18

hind Psyche wcro so arranged that they left a triangle of glass in winch the light did not fall. Through this she saw Painter stooping forward to look into the room. The shaggy beard reached his eyes. He moved his eyes from the portrait to look at Phoebe "Somctimes dream about him, contin- ued Miss Fawcett, ''coming back of nights to stare in Ut the windows. He'd be just the man to ghost around and make one's hair rise"
 Look therer, whispered Phoebe, stretch ing out her hand. "But he's gone." Psyche dropped her hands and flew with faint scream to hold around her guest.
 "Oh, what did you see!-one right behind my baclxI'
 aDon't mind,, said Phoebe, forming her 1 lips to laugh. 'erhat' only Ae second vision I've seen through window this evening"" But what was its" Miss Fawcett palpi- ! tated.
 "Just Painter: the man who lives alone | up the hills"
 "Ohl I've heard of him. He is harmless, | isn't he! Was he looking inf''
 "Yes. And how sorrowful his eyes werer'
 'I should love to have him made sorrow | ful," said Miss Fawcett, relaxing her l breath, 'for proving around here and ter | rifying us. Now shan't sleep for a week."
 'It might be imagined it,'' said Phoebe. ''This is an unlucly night for me to look out of a window"
 I've are both perfectly silly" pronounced ! Miss Fawcett, ''shut away here by our selves. I am afraid of the dark and of 1 spooks; and so are you if you would unbend | your martial bearing and own it.''
 In the listening attitude which twenty four hours had confirmed to a habit, Phoebe sat in the schoolhouse and waited for | Thorney. All the seats were empty, but ridges of dust around the bottom of the desks and clay tracks on the floor showed where young, restless feet had been. A sum in fractions remained upon the black | board. The fire was dying in the gray and elderly stove, which seemed to deny having ever indulged in red-hot fits of roaring | when wind and snow beat outside. A barlSy Odor came from the wood-box, and from it | also crcpt out a mouse to smell at crumbs l dropped at noon. Perhaps Phnbe's moving | a hand, perhaps the appalling drearinCss of | ths school-house interior, terrified the l mouse, ana 1t flashed back in a gray streak Somebody's COW in the woods, reminded by 1 associations of sad experience in her life, l uttered a mellow, piai">iVe lowing. Feet | shufaed and bumped upon the step; then | Thorney White brought them in and straight | to the wood-box, where he stood digging the mud of by scraping his heels across tine boX's edge, as if this were the object of his l entrance. Phoebe came down the aisle and took hold of his arm. The unshuttered win dows threw plenty of light around them; it was not yet five o'clock. Thorney gave pettish jerk and continued digging with his heels. She stood patiently aside. Search as she might, she could never | find comfort or support in his face, yet she could not bring herself to guide and contro! | him with more firmneSS than tenderness. In the secret folds of her heart she owned | he was Q modification and pain; but be- | ing her brother he ought to have an average | struck between them and be endowed with half of her abilities,
 ''You aren't cross tonight, are you, | Thorney!' said Phoebe.
 Thorney responded that he didn't see no | sense in leaving his work to run at her beck and call.
 II didn't want you to leave your work. would have waited till your work was sionen
 Thorney growled that his work was never done, Ie didn't have folks taking him to parties; he couldn't drive around big and proud and keep his brother a-hooping it.
 "Oh," said Phoebe, with an accent of quiet despair 'Thane's been with you. hasn't hep
 "Yes, he has," growled Thorney. And | he took my tin whistle from me" ] "rhorney, he didn't get your moneyl" | "He did, too. He made me bring out all my wages. And he took my tin whistle,'' y sullied Thorney, grieving for the instrument with which he initiated birds in the woods. Many an hour when Thorney should have been chopping, he sat upon stake-and- riderea fence ar the high limb of a felled tree, and piped after his fashion as heartily IS Pan.
 "ThGae don't know how to work it." sniffed Thorney, but he made me give it up to him.
 Phoebe looked at him, collapsing on his }wp muscles in abject helplessnessi and at herself.
 Do you think we shall ever get away from it, Thorney.n
 "Get away from whati''
 "From all of it. Thane Is so much stouter and older than we-are And he knows how to make us do things we hate to do. We ought to have some chance"
 You've got chance enough" drowned Thorney. II wish could set around and draw big wages. And go to parties. Why don't they invite nae to their parties" de manded Thorney, in sheepish sullenness shaking his head at the wood-hoX.
 ''Yes, why don't theyl'' said voice be- | meath one of the winduw-SaShes, which be- gan to go up with many shuddering re- monstrancc and jar of glass. The man who | had met Phoebe in the woods propped the
 sash with a stick and leaned on his arms SC
 as to bring head and shoulders within the
 room, opposite Thorney. "And nae, too
 But my lady there has way of putting her
 self above you and me, Thorney. She
 would like to shake us altogether. Only
 she can't"
 'sNo," said Phoebe, all the repellant
 forces in her body reused by the sight ot
 him, I've never can be rid of him, Thorney.
 Look at his hair getting gray; and he has
 robbed us of more hopes than he has hairs
 in his head. He has carried our names into
 prisons; he has tried to drag us into wick
 edness. am scarcely more than little
 girl, bull fsel old and life-worn when Hook
 at you, Thane White.'
 "And he went and took my tin whistle,
 said Thorney, adding his climax.