Connecticut western news., 1890-02-26
ONE VALENTINES DAY.
BI kEZIAH SHELTON.

sunny and smiling; the birds that had passed their northern winter in the warm b anches of the fir and spruce trees of tho woods, were hopping 2 lightly from the si!very blossomed d pussy willows to the fringed and tas- seled hazel and alder shrubs, now and then trilling forth from their tiny throats purest spring-like' songs of joy.
 Adown the tazel-bordered country road came two resy girls clad in navy blue walking suits, wi h here and there in their costumes dash of rcd :; their bright faces and wind-.ossed hair ero wned with jaunty crimson yarns with dark blue tassels.
 Their steps were elastic with health and youths undoubting hopefulness :: they gave the finishing touch of life that made the scene perfect one 70 two young men who were sitting un- observed by them in sunny corner where two walls met, sketching the stretchsof grey roadway with it's shrub befringed edges and fluttering birds.
 Be quick and sketch them, Jack ,itis thesdne thing needed to make the theqe perfect. There, they have paus- ed, nhd how unconsciously graceful they are pausing! Not often do you get such an accidental touch as this, md the picture will be the envy at the Annual Exhibition"
 Rapidly the sketching went on, and toGether the girls resumed their steady tramp, Keeping perfect step, and pass ing the two youngsmen who lookeI as innocent as only the guilty can! If theyFhad not skefched the girls, they naturally would have shown some con- sciousness of their approach.
 Now, it was the girls who gave ai- most start of surprise as they SUI, den- 1y discovered the artist and his friend.
 'sWhat handsome, stylish young men! Did you notice the moustache of tte dark-haifed one? What natural wave it had, not that horrid waxy curl at the ends that makes you feel that it must have just come fresh from .he barber's tongs," said Mabel Tink- ham. who W as something of an artist in her taste as regarded masculine beauty. Being herself rich hued blonde, it was but natural that she should have been attracted. by the dark style of Roland Holland.
 ssNo, did not notice the dark one as being other than a commen-looking man, but the brown-bearded man what . figure he had! And a perfect face!" and Mary Peck, with a graceful movement of her arm, put up her hand to her hair, to assure herself that the wind had not blown it ..every which sway."a "Really, are we blown quite into frights, Mabel? I wonder who those fellows are, and where they came from. One WAS skctching and the other leaning on the wall and look ing; or do you suppose he was posing? Wouldn't he make splendid portrait? ?"
 "He? No, he couldn't hold candle to the dark one. I wish we could know them, but what is the use in talk ing such nOnsense; you and I shall never know such as he out in this will deTness! wonder if pa will ever get his business strengthened out, so that we can once more have a comfortable home in the city! For one, I am heartily tired of living out he in the country, shut out from all society. l don't see why men who know enough to do business on change don't know enough not to get sfieeced,' as pa calls it. Oh, dear, what made him fail all at once, and send us out here to grand father's?"
 Il don't know, 1 am sure; buying long and eel ing short and buying short and selling long, and being rich few years, and then suddenly .as poor as Jobs turkey; is conundrum I cannot understand. But ] began to feel that when pa and his clique was rich, then somebody wal Aeecea and made poor |; we didn't know who it was, that was all, and we just enjoyed it.
 s.Now pa talks about our being feeced, and I suppose somebody is fourishing on the feecing just as we did and never dreaming that out here in the woods we, tho feeced, are drag ging along misesably, shut out from all the things we used to have. How long .havewe worn these suits? Mine is actually .sproating & fringe around the bottom, sortof growing its spring foliage as one might say. Iwonder if we can have some new ones this spring?'
 "I don't know. We lave actually worn them three years; they were the last we bad before we came here two years Ago tf9 Fourteenth of this month. Don't you remember we were planning such fun for the novel valentine party Lncy Hoyt had sent out Invitations for? Then pa failed, and we arrived here at g9andpa's the evening of the party. thought I shoulds die as we sat that. night in the kitchen and watched grandpa popping corn and grandma cracking walnuts, and actu- ally feeling that they were making a real good lime for us!"
 ..Never fear, remember it all; it was just horrid. And grandma says now she don't see what all our 'oppor. tunifies' shave amounted 10 vixen we can't do half g much to help ourselves as girls who never had half oul chance!''
 .Hew provoked s..e is because WIG don't want 10 reach; and she is right we couldn't do it if we did wish to. She told me this morning, if wanted . new dress ought to find some way to earn 1t that it was a shame that pa had spent thousands of dollars on oul school bi!ls piano les ons and French teachers, and after all we couldn't teach even the school in this district And there's Nancy Farnum, who's never had dollar spent on her school ing, and has earned ten dollars week for forty weeks a year, for the last five years; has helpod her ma for her board fore and after school, has dressed we'll, furnished her mas parlor up, and put money in the savings bank and you two girls can't even give the