Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1894-06-21

the prim ladies who brought their scls-
sors and thimbles and sat seriously
sewing through the Wednesday after
moons, while an improving book was
read aloud. Una was as much alone as
though she never touched human
hand or saw human face. Then quite
without warning the change came.
Miss Vincent died, died suddenly,
sitting upright at her table, working at
the accounts in the little marble-covered
account books, died with her pen in her
hand and with anxious eyes tracking
Though the long columns missing
fourpence half-penny. They found her
there in the morning when they came
in to unbar the shutters and remove
the slight traces of yesterdays dull life
from carpet and chair and fender.
They went up and told Una without
preface or hesitation.
''Get up, Miss Mary !" the housemaid
said. "Your poor aunt is dead"
| And Una got up. She did not run
down to see the worst for herself, in
dressing gown and slippers ; but she
dressed quickly with all the customary
routine of the toilet, and as on other
mornings brushed out her long hair
and twisted it up, looking all the while
out of the window. 1t was a bright
May morning. There were two black
birds on the wet lawn. Then she said
her prayers, because she had always
been used to say them, and went down.
stairs.
The doctor was there. They had laid
Miss Vincent on the table and covered
her with a sheet. The doctor was az
ranging it's folds over the dead face
when Una came in.
''The poor lady's niece" said the
cook, introducing them. "The doctor,
Miss Mary; he says it's all over"
Una turned away and went into the
drawing-room. She stood there gazing
out of the window, the tears slowly
rolling down her face, with an ache of
heart, just as though she had loved the
hard woman who lay cold under sheet
across the hall. Perhaps she had, with
out knowing it, for love is plant which
grows in strange places and with little
to feed it. The DOCTORS voice reused
her.
"Come, my DEAR" he said, "you
must cheer up. Is there no one you
can send for?"
"No one," said Una.
He meditated moment.
~ don't like leaving you all alone in
tIllS St1u DOSSC, liz SolSAs
He was a white-bearded old man,
with a shining bald head and friendly
eyes.
III must send my wife to keep you
company"
And Una, who could not understand
her own tears, let him go without a
word. 1t seemed to her that no time
had passed, or else very, very long
time indeed, so long that one might
well lose count of it, when the door
opened and stout, rosy-cheeked old
lady, with little white curls on each side
of her smooth forehead, came into the
room. She made two steps forward,
hesitated, then came right up to the for
lorn little figure by the window, and,
quite simply, as if it were the most
common thing in the world, took Una
in her arms and kissed her again and
again.
"You poor little thingv' she said;
you must come home with me.o
And Una, still stunned, obeyed.
They gave her the best room at the
DOCTORS, and the doctors wife waited
on her and fed her, and petted her as
though she had been indeed one of the
children that had lain, in the old times
on that motherly breast, and Una's
flower drinks dew.
Miss Vincent was buried and the will
read, and Una knew that her aunts
money was hers, and that she was her
own mistress, yet the weeks went by
and still she stayed in her new home
with the new happiness that not even
her books or her dreams had pictured
| for her. She was not clever;-oh, no;
she was not pretty either; she was not
she knew too well-even good. Yet
here was one who loved her.
1t was when she had beer. there a
month that the DOCTORS wife looked up
from her pile Of letters at breakfast
with new joy in her face.
"My son is coming home," she said.
Gle will be here, he says, almost as
soon as his letter. He has got years
leave. Oh! my dear, what a happy old
woman 1 am!-the happiest in the
worldv'
And the doctor at the other end of
the table took his spectacles off and
wiped them-to have good look, as he
said, at the happiest woman in the
world,
All this time Una had never looked
in the glass. "They love me here" she
said to herself, $50 what does it matter
now lOOh!'
That night, as they sat round the fire
for the evenings were still chilly,
though it was early June-the rumble
of wheels came up the road. The doc
tors wife, throwing her sixty years be-
hind her, rushed to the door. There
was sound of hurried inquiries, of
kisses, of luggage being set down in the
hall, a clink of money as the cab was
paid, and then the DOCTORS wife, with
pink roses in her own pretty old face
and stars of joy in her faded eyes, came
into the room, leading handsome,
bronzed, soldierly man.
'This is my boy, Una," she said.
"Francis, this is my dear girl"
And as he came across the room,
holding out brown h4nd, and looking
at Una with frank, plue eyes, her
own dropped before them, and she
wished with little pang, for the first
time for years, that it had pleased Fate
to make her little better, n1t quiiie 50
stupid, not 50 ugly.
A month later the great happiness Of
life came to her Wh1n those strong
/ hands held her OWL.