The news & observer., 1895-08-25


Cardinals daughters"
The sighs held in reserve for the read
er come twenty or thirty pages further
on, after various adventures which we
wish we had space to chronicle, and
good deal of typographical, historical,
and statistical information conveyed
with an adroitness of which one example
will give faint idea. Mr.. Dugger's
heroine, the fairest of North Cardinals
daughters, his villain, the infamous
dude, and his good old clergyman, are
surveying the various peaks from IA
vorable point of view, such as Baedeker
would have utilized for the introduction
of panorama The Rev. Mr.. Skiles is
naming the mountains for the benefit of
Miss Meals, Leathershine, and the pur-
chaser of the guide book;
pointing with his cane the minister
said: See the old man of the mountains;
when that is silvered with frost or
blanched with snow it has the appear
ance of great age, and hence the plon-
eers called it the Grandfather; and the
mountain of which it is part the
Grandfather Mountain.
I" Between the old Man and the high
top said Miss Meaks, is a beautiful
green tower, as if supported within by
column of stone
'Methinks, replied the clergyman,
that it is called the Haystack, from its
marked resemblance to a mound of hay
Near the top of Grandfather Mountain
is a perennial spring, "the highest tenn
perature of which is 40 degrees, and half
a pint from its unpolluted channels
quenches the greatest thirst" Our three
travellers are drinking of this water in
birch bark cups, when two men ap-
proach. One is a guide. In the other
Miss Meaks thinks she recognizes ''the
familiar features Of a long lost friend" "
1.-The beautiful rhod0dendron bloom
that embossed her bosom. now rose and
fell with deep sigh that pushed forward
the elegantly rounded prospect behind
it. She doubted her impression, and
said in silent soliloquy:
Impossible that he who knows not
my love could be here. No more shall
my heart leap and my lips tremble TO
the deceitful refraction of light in woods
like these. The warm palm / once re-
fused will never return, alas! to reclaim
me from my folly. Farewell, good by,
my Charlie: shall never see you again
until | drink the water of L9the, and re-
turn from the Elysian fields not know
ing that ever did you wrong"
Yet it was the schoolma'am's Charlie,
sure enough; Charlie Clippersteel, just
returned to North Carolina after a pro
longed absence in Europe. He was "a
tall, commanding man, with a gracefully
flowing moustache, aquiline nose, evenly
set teeth, mobile chin, and the elongated
corners of his dark brown eyes stretched
away under dark brows around fair
temples, from which beautiful black
hair retreated above his ears" He ap-
proaches the 42d degree spring, and
with bis mobile chin remarks to his guide:
"'When we get there will drink to
her / once loved but now only remem
Der; and, if the water is as icy cold as
icy cold as you say, it will be most
suitable beverage for the occasion, for
then / viii say: Here is to that cold
heart that drove me wandering from my
country; that stole the sweet sleep from
my midnight pillow and gave me insom-
MIA; the heart that charged me with all
the fiattery belonging to the untrue OF
my sex; and while this portion from the
living fount of Grandfather shall queuch
the last smouldering spark of love for
her that fingers in my bosom, may some
messenger of the gods bear her the news
that Charlie was true
We skip much that is lovely, much
that is useful to the tourist, and much
that illustrates the depravity Of expelled
college students, to get to the thrilling
interview between the reunited lovers
This has permanent sociological vs.ue,
for Mr.. Digger takes advantage G he
opportunity to show the worldt "a
travelled North Carolina gontlem 7
a cultured Raleigh schoolmistre
love. Clippersteel opens on Mi.
with this graceful compliment:
"'It cost me four years In foreign.
Land to travel to the frigid zone of my
heart, where the SHOWS that ended the
summer of love were lighted only by the
fitting meteors of the borealis race. But
your unexpected presence here to-day,
which could not avoid, has placed that
icy region again under the burning SUI
of the tropics. Already the SHOWS have
gone, and their place is occupied by the
water lily, perfumed with the spices and
the cloves, and spreading its sweet petals
upon my bosom. How can you drive
such love as mine from its mortal habi
tation, and leave my bosom empty, with
all but unending pain Z My heart is
thirsty, and you are its living fountain.
Let me drink, and water desert that
will soon flourish with the green bay tree
and the balm of Gilead." "
"FOh, God = cried Miss Meaks, par
don the weakness of woman = and, bury
ing her face in his bosom, her lachrymal
lakes overfowed and anointed his gar
ments with drops that were to him the
myrrh of the soul.
TT is pursuit, she said, and not
possession that man enjoys, and now,
therefore, the tender regard you have
for me is ready to be cremated upon the
pyre of my broken spirit, and nothing
but an urn of ashes left to its memory.
'Neverr replied Charlie, never un-
til God Himself is buried, and the dark