Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1894-03-23

8N71 --zIN could he?" or
H'aAp> N I' ;s:': !: ::;: :.:: :::.;::: :':;: {:
staid old bachelor, Jonas bingham
("thirty if he's a day. said
the wondering "other girls''), carried
off Mary Morton, not yet ont OF her
teens, right in the face and eyes OF
many admiring boys, a great many
people wondered, Chow could she?"
But. after all, it was not so very
strange he was her first lover, and q
great deal must be conceded to first
love- 1t was so nice to be admired
and adored. At home she occupied
the sometimes questionable position
of the middle one in family of three
daughters. Nobody doubted that she
was good and useful, but she was not
brilliant and fascinating like her older
sister, Amy, nor was she pretty doll
of a girl to be petted as everybody
petted her younger sister, Bess, 50
that if Mary, had been in the least in
clined to be jealous, she might have
felt herself neglected; but she was too
sweet tempered for that. Amy had
troops of beaux that she wound around
her finger and made her most obedl-
ent slavos; but Jonas bingham was
Marv's first attentive. escort, and his
devotion and sincerity carried her
heart by storm.
Their courtship was not very long
one. Jonas pleaded eloquently for an
early wedding day, and Mary was
nothing loath, for life with Jonas and
for him seemed like paradise in antic-
ipation. He lived three miles away Oh
q LARGE farm-his fathers and grand
fathers before him. His father had
been dead several years, and his
mother, though still active and indus
trious. WAS too old to work as she had
always done. Jonas was her only child,
and she favored his marrying, ex
pressing her anxiety to give up the In
door management to younger, ablel
hands than her own.
Everybody knew the Hinghanls were
forehanded, free from debt and witt
money at interest. The Mortons, on
the contrary, had always lived from
hand to mouth, Mr.. Morton's trade
never having suficed to do much more
tbau provide a home, with ample fooo
anl clothing, besides educating the
girls as they wanted to be, with music
and painting, and Ill the ornamentalf
which girls in country villages sigh
after. The Mortons' home, though
small, was really elegant, with all the
knick-knacks with which ladies OF
leisure and taste contrive to surround
themselves. If things were not ex-
pensive and luxuriant, they were taste
ful and comfortable, and that is some.
times better yet
1t is safe to say that Mary never
dreamed of the change it would be fol
her to go from her snug, pretty home
into that great, bare farm house-like
changing from soft, musical poetry tc
plain, dry prose. She knew, OF course,
that Johns mother could have no time
for fancy work, besides making the
lutter and cheese and doing the other
necessary things; but she did not
dream that Mrs. bingham would con
slider it downright sinful and waste
of precious time to do up futed pill
low-shams or paint beer jugs in faded
pink or blue. There was a wilderness
o: rooms in the house. most OF then
kept shut up the year round, except
when opened for cleaning all OF then
with bare, yellow-painted floors, spot
less and shining, except the parlor
which had rag carpet made by Mrs
bingham twenty years before. Sum
mer and winter the family had always
worked and ate and sat i'll the great
kitchen, except when company came
then they rolled up the green paper
shades in the sitting-room, and sat IL
there. Few pictures adorned the wall
some antiquated, cheap lithograph
in ogee frames, and various maps
Everything was stiff, bare, orderl.
md scrupulously clean.
Mary had brought with her variou
r.gs ard titles, also pictures, mats an(
vases, with which she had thought t.