Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1892-11-25

"You-you, Miss Bessie!"
She started, as she looked up, snd saw
| Bessie Barrett standing 50 near hS. She
was a slim, brown-haire1 little thing, OF
about seventeen. She was clad in an ILL
made gown of coarse maroon cashmere.
! Her eyes were large, gray, just now very
sorrowful. Her lashes and brows were
quite black. The delicate features had a
punched look, aud the pretty lips were
| paier than should be the lips of one so
young.
Eyes; and heard"
ooh, don't-dont mind, DEAR" said
Mrs. Dotty. soothingiy, putting a hand
that looked like wrinkled ivory OF the
girls arm. "He is just cross, soured,
lonely old man."
Il do mind ~ Bessie pasoionately cried.
"Oh, dc! sha'n't stay here! sha' t
be an expense to him any longer. l will
/ go away somewhere!"
weeping.
"Now, Miss Bessie, dear, you mustn't
cry that way; you really mustn't. l
loved your mother before you, and I love
you"
But the poor, little, old comforter was
| almost crying herself.
Years before, the Kirkes were the
people of wealth and position in that
part Of the country. But one trouble
,fteT an other had come upon the house.
First, the wife of the master died.
Maud, the daughter, married a man
whose only crime was poverty. He was
a frail, scholarly man, quite united for
a fierce struggle against adverse fortune.
He fell ill and died. A year later his
wife followed him, leaving their child
to its grandfather, Godfrey K'rke. To
the latter had come the final blow when
his only son Robert, his hope and pride,
had run away to sea. Then in the
house, which since the death of the mis-
tress had been a cherries and drearY
place, began a rigid reign of miserliness
and consequent misery.
Bessie broke from her friend and ran
upstairs and into her own little bare
room. There was no fire in the CRATE,
though the day was cold with the pene-
trating damp of wind from off the
ocean. She went to the window and
stood there looking out across the fiat
brown marshes, to where the waters
tossed, greenish and turbulent.
GA horrid day." she said, with a
shiver, "but it can't be worse out than
in
She put on a short old Astrahan
jacket, a little felt hat and a pair of
much-mended cloth gloves. Then she
went quickly down and out.
The dusk, the dreary November dusk,
was filing the room when the old man,
Flooding over his accounts, laid down
his pencil and rang the bell. Mrs.
Dotty responded. Mr.. Kirke kept but
one other servant (f Mrs. Dotty could
correctly be termed servant), and she
absolutely refused to enter the protest
ing presence of her master.
"Tea!'
eyes, sir"
The meek housekeeper withdrew.
Ten minutes later she brought in a tray
on which were tea, bread, butter, two
cups, two saucers and two plates. Mr..
Kirke poured out his tea, shook little
of the sugar he was about to use back in
the old silver bowl, added carefully
few drops of milk and cut slice of
&ead.
''Butter has gone up three cents in the
last week, he said. 81 can't afford to
use butter"
So he munched his bread dry, with
sense of exaltation in his self-imposed
penauce. He would not open the
poorhouse-d for himself by using but
ter. But, somehow, the rank tea tasted
ranker than usual. Surely the bread
was sour. And the gloom outside the
small circle that the lampGght illunined
seemed singularly dense. What was
wrorg9 What was missing? What was
different? He paused, his hand falling
by his side. The child--as he and Mrs.
Deity had always called her--the child
was not here. She used to slip in so
quietly, take her seat, and when her
meager supper was over, glide away just
as softly. Yes, little as he noticed her,
she was generally there. He rang the
bell sharply.
"Where is shea" he asked Mrs. Dotty,
when she popped in her mild old head.
There was no need to particularize. Mrs.
Dotty cast a swift, searching look
arou1 d.
Isn't she here?"
Without waiting for a reply, she
turned and ran up the stairs to Bessie's
room. There she knocked. No
answer. She opened the door, went in.
The room was empty.
Hastily she descended the stairs.
"Shs is not in, SIR"