The Press., 1891-10-01

later when Mrs. Northup saw ner rou5,or drive away in the Ashleys carriage, with the smart coachman ill livery on the box s'Bless me" said she to herself, eff she don't look like queen, and the girl has got face and figger that outshines all the Ashleys put together, aristocrats though they be-" @
 It would be impossible to describe Edith's day on the yacht. Indeed, the girl never quite grasped it herself. She seemed to be floating along grassy and 1 howery banks, through enchanted isl- ands, ever becoming more and more in- timate with the Ashleys, especially Har- old, who sat beside her talking the most delicious nonsense when she was not tell ing him about Willie, pr;rising her broth CTS scholarship and his wonderful genius in way that made her blush for shame when she recalled it later. -. l But Harold took pains to draw her out, and seemed deeply interested in the poor boy, and she had been led ell, she knew not how, to confide to this young man, almost 8 stranger, her dearest hopes about her adored brother, her only near relative. Then everybody was so kind, exactly as if the little fete had been made in her honor. They dined on a pretty wooded island carpeted with ferns, and Miss Trevor was brought off the yacht and arranged with rugs and pillows that she might enjoy the feast without injury to her health. The scene was perfectly idyllic under the trees, and the manners of this family toward each other were so beautiful and cour- teous that Edith's young imaginative head was quite turned. She remembered wandering round the island long time with Harold in such state of bliss that never for moment had she thought of her shabby clothes. It was species of intoxication from an unwonted draught of pleasure as heady as new wine, and in this unreal state of entertainment she had forgotten her long days of labor and hardship, her garret chamber and her neglected story. She returned home i'll the twilight, and found Mrs. Northup on the front doorstep enjoying the cool of the day, while Margery skipped about among the flower beds and chased q great brown moth. Mrs. Northup mo- ticed the large, live look in Ediths eyes and her air of suppressed. joyous excite ment.
 ''I guess you have had a splendid time. Miss March, and no mistake
 "Indeed l have," said Edith, laughing softly as she drew in her breath
 "And how in the world did you ever get so thick with them Ashleys, Miss March? They're the most exclusive. top loftical people in Littleheld'
 "Indeed 1 don't know,' said Edith with happy sigh. "The fairies must have done it."
 Fairies, boshr returned practical Mrs. Northup. ''I guess Harold Ashley is pretty gay young man, and of course you know he has been engaged to Miss Trevor for some years. MT. Ashley is Miss Trevors guardian, and she is tre- mendously rich, somewhere up in the millions, they do say, and of course they
 ouldn't think of letting the money go out of the family"
 Miss March brushed briskly past her landlady in the dark hall mounted the stairs to her own room and closed the door. It was nasty of Mrs. Northup to say such things to her, and yet it was kind, truly kind. The words had shat tered her little spun glass house. and suddenly her feet felt as heavy as lead, and she was conscious that her head was aching. What fool she had been to think for 8 moment she could associate with people like the Ashleys and partici- pate in the life they led-she, poor scribbler, with scarcely enough money in her purse to pay her weeks lodging! She had taken bewildering draught, and it had gone to her brain, but now she was sober and well awake she must put by all these lovely illusive Visions and shut the door and buckle to her task. Shame on her for having forgot ten Wills future for a single moment! That night Edith slept but little. She nad hard tussle with herself, but she conquered in tho end, as she always did, md fell asle CD at last resolved as to what she must do.
 A soft rain was pattering on the roof next morning, mixed with the chirp of nesting robins and bluebirds. The odor of growing things and opening flowers came in at her window as Edith ar ranged her little work table, everything severely rectangular, to check the play of errant fancy and bind down her mind to the grindstone of duty. There she sat and wrought hour after hour, with the monotonous scratch of the pen going on over the paper without pause. Trains rushed by, shaking Mrs. Northups little house with a giants hand every fifteen minutes. The storm had cleared away. and now the sun blazed on the sloping roof and turned the attic room to a fire bath. Wasps and flies buzzed about The lovely blue sky, full of floating white clouds, invited her to look, but still Edith wrought on, feeling neither hunger nor heat, nor the small earth quake shocks of the trains
 It was four in the afternoon She was still sitting at her task with bent head when voices were heard outside her door. Mrs. Northup was saying to some one behind her:
 II keep tellin' her she'll kill herself writin' day and night, and forgettin' to eat, but it don't do no manner of good"
 Then came dainty little rap. and Fanny Ashley, in an exquisite light sum- mer gown and full feathered hat, stood smiling in the doorway.
 You see have hunted you down; l told you should. And this is the room where you spin your pretty webs," and she glanced lightly about at the little oil stove, the two cracked tea cups on the shelf, the breadth of faded carpet before the lame bureau
 But don't intend to leave you here slaving away all this beautiful afternoon We are to have matched game of ten