Waterbury evening Democrat., 1891-04-13

were hOuuln2 dI bnG Wlldo"ss ehC plump brave babe began knocking lustily about the furnishings of the fair old rooms, and when the autumn came he was tumbling rather helplessly among the juicy globes beneath the hillside app1e-trees. Here Elizabeth Earling often spent the sunny after moons, watching the little walker in his waddling feats with happy eyes, or looking laughingly up from her needle. work to note the break-neck pranks of the sweating Absalom, performing the arduous part of harlequin to the heir apparent. Back of and above them the old dwelling held its gables against the blue sky and circling swallows, and below them the green ground swayed softly down to meet the meadows, and they in turn the glinting levels of the stream. Ever and anon a boat went laboring up the broad river, breaking its glassy surface into crinkled silver, or one came tieetly down, Haunting it's backward streaming plume of smoke, and sank away around the great bend to the south. A road ran northward obeying the long flexures of the mighty stream, dividing the meadows here, entering the wood- land there, and crossing many brook that came purling downward from the upland, ere it found the bustling will lage, faintly deserted from Earling farm. Midway on this curving will lowy highway lay the estate of 1vyl Snaer. Evil Sheer was the pseudonym old Jade was wont to give him in his growlings, though this slightly obese summer morning. About this respect o1 cnnpar,1 always a sort of aroma of acquisitive greed that chilled little the sensi tive instincts of the just and generous. Still his affable and oily air, despite many curious, if not questionable, busi- ness habits, went far to make his social place reputable. Though not yet arrived at mid-life a not inconsider- able portion of this worlds goods had come glibly into his possession. True this prosperity had brought pain and privation to some, and inconvenience at least to many, but since the social scepter then, as now, awarded seats of honor to the successful gleaners of gold, rather than to the acquisitive in less gaudy and less potent metals. the horizon of his influence was rather widened than diminished. A sort of land-broker was this Ivyl Snaer; ostensibly a worker of the soil, his personal opera tions upon that honest quantity con- sidered rather its utility as a thing of trade than as an agent of more palpa- ble fruits. A foreman on his big farm contiguous to John Earrings estate, directed the energies of the ground into gain, while Ivyl, from the van tage-point of partial residence at a public house in town, cast invisible nets into the sea of other mems neces- sites, bringing up many golden lien and swiftly ripening mortgage. What the eNSct inclination of his sentiments were aH touching religion lay some what in doubt, but real or simulated, he indisputably sought the house of God with much regularity and meek ness of expression. With much deco rum, too, as became astaid and opulent example of good morals, he sat at the spiritual board. regarding not the length or brevity of its manifestations, Perhaps his eyes of washy blue were a tritle null, and his fingers, laced to- drawn little tight, but nevertheless went far to indicate to others the rev. erent sincerity of his heart. Very suave and deferential was Ivyl Snaer with bluff John Earling, whether ir acknowledgment of his iron-like in
 tegrity. or out of some unspoken hate
 it were at best impossible to discover The grutf Scotchman at least drew even- ly in the social yoke with smiling 1vyl, for in that rather obscure corner of the fat old Commonwealth of Ohio they two perhaps were richest. This fact may have contained the kernel ol the matter; in any case, it was patent
 to all that Earling held his flowery fellow in something little milder than
 contempt; and whatever the true com plexion of Ivyrs feelings, their expres' sion, even for this master of adulation was strangely purry and obsequiousD
 In one presence alone did lvyl Suael Iseem unworthy of his reputation. Be fore the clear, deep eyes of Elizabeth
 Earling his rather unsteady orbs went ldown, and his tongue forgot its cum lining. Did it seem to him that his sou Twas stripped in these moments, anC his motives all uncovered? Did hi. lspirit shrink down instinctively before
 the lofty purity of her womanhoodl Twas he like boy made bashful by the
 beauty of her flesh? She at least saw
 the swift confusion of his wits wheI
 chance or purpose brought then
 face to face, and wondered a
 it. Doubtless the fact tha
 of all the women of tha
 region, Elizabeth Earling was perhap
 the fairest and most gently bred
 pointed more or less accurately to th'
 solution. She had not considered this
 however. since Ivyl Snaer was nothing
 in her world beyond q rather pompou
 neighbor, whose presence chilled lit
 tie the calm, clear currents of her nat
 ure. Sewing one evening under tn
 hillside apple-trees, with her lust,
 baby-boy growing and falling after thu
 fat pippins that Absalom bowled acros
 the matted grass, she saw her husban'
 coming slowly homeward through tn
 freckled autumn. The weather wa
 restful. the air being balmy and of in
 dolent motion, and the long gray rive