The news boy., 1894-04-07


stove was too small, and had voted
new one; and the gentlemen most in
terested in the welfare of Honeydale
church had taken upon themselves to
advise their minister, Rev. Martin Til
lingEast, to marry again, he having
been a widower for thirteen months.
Miss Margaret Parker. the school
teacher, was rejoicing over the first
fact, and Mr.. Tillinghast, the clergyman,
was rather depressed as he thought
upon the second "They are as busy
with my affairs, he said to himself, "as
they We're twenty years ago" He had
not been happy Us a married man, truth
to tell. Mrs Tillinghast meant to be q
good woman, and she had written tracts
and could have written his sermons
Sor him, and she thought herself very
sueritorious person. But she had not
'tiad the virtue of meekness and she
had had what her successive servants
called way of nagging. When her
tract-writing, her playing Oh the melo.
deon and her general manner had
caused the deacons and elders to decide
that she was just the girl for minis
ter's wife, and they had resolved to
hint to their young pastor, Mr.. Tilling-
hast, that Squire Rutter's granddaugh-
ter would be an excellent minister's
wife. it was we'll for her mothers FAM
lily, her brothers and sisters, even her
old grandfather. Martin Tillinghast
was very Jealous just then, very posi-
tive as to the fact that he ought to re-
sign the lusts of this world. When his
dinner was not good he felt nearer to
Heaven than when it was, and he slept
upon bed of huslss interspersed with
imany fragments of cobs, rather reioic-
ing in its hardness. Jerusha was, he
knew, worthy. She taught Sabbath
school. She was of value in the choir
That she was unusually plain, and that
he felt uncomfortable in her company
made him feel sure that she was the
very wife for him. He proposed in
form, was accepted without enthusi-
asm. and had had fourteen years of
anything but peace and comfort His
home shone with cleanliness, it is true,
and his wife was a sort of shining
light in religious circles, but his ways"
troubled her-his near-sighted awk-
wardness, his mild abstraction-just as
he was troubled by her continual ad-
vice and reproof, the clump of her in
evitably heavy shoes all over the house,
and her shrill voice, rebuking the serv-
ants, or remarking on his scattered
papers, wandering slippers and be-
6aubed inkstand, and the smears his
scant but oily hair made on the chair
backs. while the protecting "tidies"
had dropped upon his STOPPING shoul-
ders.
They never had quarrel, and when
she died he had the comfort which Tong
suffering with much patience must give.
But he did not want to marry again;
and who can wonder?
He sat over his tea long enough to
have eaten a state dinner that evening,
and he thought of what Deacon Phil
lips had said and of what Elder Brown
had limited, laughing and rubbing his
hands as he spoke. But he was not
sure that man might not be very
happy on this earth, and still ready for
the next, as he used to be in those old
days when they had married him to
lJerusha- At least, If he must marry,
he said he would take a wife whose
face and manner pleased him-one he
liked.
And his thin face flushed as he
lthought-for there had been throttled
romance in his life. and it was coming
to, getting its breath again after long
years of Inconsistencies.
! Peggy Parker teaches the Honey
dale school yet" he said, softly. II
saw her name in last years report I
suppose she sees mine occasionally. L
lI--wonder-"
He did not say exactly what he ''won-
dered," but he neither read wise books
NOR wrote his Sundays sermon that
evening. and late at nightsst at his desk
writing letter, which must have been
VERY difficult to compose. for the frag-
Rnents of those he had already written
and destroyed filed his waste-paper
basket The envelope with which he
finally covered his production was ad-
dressed to
MIss MARGAREr PARKkR.
ossssss ssss s.ssssss,''. ..ss'.ssssssss1
And - he glanced at the calendar for
tbe day OF the month. . happy idea oc-