Connecticut western news., 1891-10-15
THE WOMAN'S ROSE.

have an old brown carved box; the lid is broken and tied with string In 1t l keep little squares of paper, with hair inside, and little which hung over my brothers bed when we were chill dren, and other things as small. have in it rose. Other women also have such boxes where they keep such trifes, but DO one has my rose.
 When my eye is, dim, and my heart grows faint, and my faith in woman Mckers, and her present is an agony to me, and her future a despair, the scent of that dead rose, withered for twelve years, comes back to me. know there will be spring, as surely as the birds know it when they see above the snow two tiny, quivering green leaves Spring cannot fail us.
 There were other flowers in the box once; 8 bunch of white acacia flowers gathered by the strong hand of a man as we passed down q village street on a sultry afternoon, when it had rained and the drops fell on us from the leaves of the acacia trees. The flowers were damp; they made mildew marks on the paper l folded them in. After many years l threw them away. There is nothing of them left in the box now but a faint smell of dried acacia, that recalls that sultry summer afternoon: but the rose is in the box still
 It is many years ago now; was girl of fifteen, and 1 went to visit in a small, up country town. It was young in those days, and two days journey from the nearest village; the population consisted mainly of men A few were married and had their wives and children. but most were single. There was only one young girl there when came She was about seventeen, fair and rather fully feshed; she had large. dreamy blue eyes and wavy light hair; full, rather heavy lips, until she smiled, and then her face broke into dimples and all her white teeth shone.
 The hotel keeper may have had a daughter, and the farmer in the out skirts had two, but we never saw them She reigned alone. All the men wor- shiped her. She was the only woman they had to think of They talked of her on the "stoop," at the market, at the hotel; they watched for her at street corners; they hated the man she bowed to or walked with down they street. They brought flowers to the front door; they offered her their horses; they begged her to marry them when they dared. Partly there was something noble and heroic in this devotion of men to the best woman they knew; partly there was something natural in it, that these men, shut of from the world, should pour at the feet of one woman the wor- ship that otherwise would have been given to twenty; and partly there was something mean in their envy of one another. If she had raised her little fin. ger, 1 suppose, she might have married any one out of twenty of them
 Then l came. l do not think was prettier. do not think was so pretty as she was. was certainly not so hand some But I was vital, and was new and she was old. They all forsook he1 and followed me. They worshiped me It was to my door that the flowers came it was l had twenty horses offered III: when l could only ride one; it was fol me they waited at street corners; it was what said and did that they talked of Partly liked it. l had lived alone al my life; no one ever told me that
 was beautiful and woman. believed them; did not know it was simply ; fashion which one man had set and the rest followed unreasoningly. l liked them to ask me to marry them, and tt say no. l despised them. The mothe1 heart had not swelled in me yet. l dit not know all men were my children, al the large woman knows when her hear is grown. was too small to be tender I liked my power. was like a chile with new whip, which it goes abou cracking everywhere, not caring agains what. could not wind it up and put i away. Men were curious creatures wht liked me, could never tell why.
 Only one thing took from my pleasure could not bear that they had deserted her for me. liked her great, dream, blue eyes, l liked her slow walk ant drawl. When saw her sitting anon! men she seemed to me much too good t, be among them. would have given al their compliments if she would ono have smiled at me as she smiled at them with all her face breaking into radiance
 with her dimples and flashing teeth. Bu
 knew it never could be; felt sure sh
 hated me; that she wished l was dead that she wished had never come to tn village. She did not know, when w
 went out riding, and man who ha' always ridden beside her came to rid
 beside me, that l sent him away; tha once when a man thought to win m
 avor by ridiculing her slow drawl oe- ore inc turned on him so 6ercely that
 le never dared to come before me again | knew she knew that at the hotel ml
 lad made bet as to which was tll, 3rettier, she or 1. and had asked eacf
 nan who came in. and that the one wht lad staked on me won. l hated then
 for it, but would not Yet her seS that
 :ared about what she felt toward me.
 She and never spoke to each other
 If we met in the village street we bowed
 md passed on; when we shook hands WI Aid so silently and did not look at eacl