Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1891-01-07

the witching hour between DUSK ana oay'
light. to call her husband to supper, when
she came skurrying back aud clutched
Phebe by the arm.
s.The Lord be good to us!'' said she, ''but
believe it's q ghostp'
sWhat's ghost, Mrs. DarrowY' asked
Phebe.
81 went to crowd past tho claw-legged
table to call Jonathan" gasped Mrs. Oar
row, "when, all of q sudden, seen little
old lady standing there looking at it-an
old lady in black, with aqueer poke bonnet
and lace veil all sprigs and scallops hang.
ing over it. And says l, 4 beg pardon,
ma 'am,' and then she was gone. Just as
if she melted into air."
Phebe clasped her hands, and gave lit
tie cry.
"This is the third time!" said she. "Sure-
ly-surely it must mean something!"
"Ehp' said Mrs. Darrow, staring.
But Phebe fsw into the gloomy, echoiug
wareroom, with it's dimly- outlined heaps OF
furniture, and it's black shadows brooding
in angles ard corners, aud, standing by the
ella w-leggsd table, whispered fervently:
"What is it, Aunt Jane-what is it you
want2 Only try to tell us, and we will have
it DONE"
And then she wrote home to her mother
about the old lady with the sprigged lace
veil, and the quaint bonnet, who stood or
sat SO silently beside the claw. legged table.
"Don't laugh at me, mother" she wrote.
"But am sure all this means something.
Cant we buy back the claw-legged table?
Ask father to search all the hooks aud cram
MES about the old house. For [ am sure
quite sure-Ihat Aunt Jane has something
on her mind as she lies there under the null
len stalks and blackberry bushes"
Pindar Perkins said it was all folly and
nonsense. Lyra, his wife, opined that
sPhebe wa ant ginerally led away by no.
tions, aud it wouldn't be no harm to look
around little. And q thorough search en-
sued, but all to no avail, and by the time
the home letter arrived the ciaw-legged ta-
BILE was sold to whimsical, fine lady, who
went into ecstasies over the glimmer of its
dark, polished wood and the fantastic pat
tern of the brass rings that opened its
musty smelling drawer!
With the late autumn came many chan
ges. Jonathan Darrow sold his business to
Henry Houre, and the enterprising young
oabinet-maker asked modest little Phebe to
be his wife.
s'Oh, but you can't really mean it?" said
Phebe.
uO, LQOugu, BhlU IoKVOuViys
ssI'm not half good enough"
"My darling, you're thousand times too
good for me-"
And so on to the end of the lovers alpha
bet they went, as lovers will do, arriving of
course, at the one conclusion of its upshot:
sIfy you love me as love you
No knife can cut our love 1n two."
And Phebe went Lome to get "her
things" ready to be married. happy, hap
py little Phebe.
"Well, do declarei'' said Mrs. Pinder.
1--WE hadn't expected you SO soon. When
the leg of Jimmy's chair went through the
old floor, says father, says he. "We'h have
Just time to get a new floor down before
Phebe and her young man come from Yoik
State, says he. And the boards is all tore
up, and everything at skies and sevens,
for -"
"Mother! motherv' cried the shrill voice
of little Pinder, called for short "Pinny,"
sssee what me and Bill have found hid away
under the floor beams-a little tin cracker.
box, bound round with rusty wire-just un-
der where father found Vie loose piece of
board with the iron ring in ill.,"
Phebe uttered an exclamation.
"Mother," che gasped, ''it's what Aunt
Jane wanted to say to us. Open II. Pinny."
sits full o. money! shouted the child.
sOh, mother, we've found buried trea-
sures! It's as good as Captain Kidd and
the pirates"
Money it was, but not much. Aunt Jane
had probably not possessed the money max
ing facilities of Captain Kidd. 1t was most
ly in 81 bills and gold pieces of the smaller
and the total was not more
than 5000. But, such as it was, it proved
a most welcome addition to the slender
finances of the Perkins family. Of course
Aunt Jane must have put it there with the
magpie-like tendency to hide that charac-
terizes extreme old age. Who else could
have done ii? And it certainly had been
found just beneath the epot where the old,
claw-legged table had stood for years.
Late last night Phebe went out in the
starlight and stood beside the grave, where
autumn leaves were already beginning to
drop down like jewels.
"Aunt Jane," she said in soft voice,
sits all right at last. We know it! Dear,
dear Aunt Jane, we only wish you could be
here with US to know how happy we all
arev'
And whispering wind sighed through
the yew-trees close to the churchyard wall
"a sound like muffled human voice-and
Phebe went back home with contented
heart.
'She knows it," said .Phebe.-Fweside
Companion.