The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1895-02-13

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gagement ring, SO as TO surprise Charley
with the promptness of its appearance
No really grownup person, with brains
enough to learn from experience, would
ever have dared to tempt fate by such
Grass confidence as this, and more pen
etratingly tactful youth would have
known that Charley even If she accept
ed him, would not bo altogether pleased
by this particular form of foresight.
But Harry was, in fact, but boy
and one sure TO be generally astray as
to what men have been pleased to chris
ten the mysteries of woman's heart,
though / dare say, if women had been
managing the worlds affairs and liter
ature for the last several thousand
years, we should be hearing just as
much about the unfathomable mysteries
of mans heart. the fact simply being
that the mystery lies in those arrange
ments of an ever inscrutable Providence,
by which it is established that the sexes
shall be eternally divided, however ap-
pearances may sometimes contradict the
fact, by an impossible gulf of mutual
Misunderstanding.
When Harry was seized with these
dreams, he was so moved by them that
he turned away from the agitated group,
laughing and chattering about the Haf--
kins family, and went and stood peer
ing through the honeysuckle vine at the
other end of the gallery. Charley called
to him, and he did not hear her:
''Mr. Harry" cried ono of the
other girls, Charley wants to know
what You are going to wear"
Excuse me-" said Harry, coming
toward them, but then he forgot to
make any reply, in the distraction of
seeing Charley's brown eyes turned up
to his, and unable to endure just then
the glancing frivolity of the talk he
picked up his hat and strolled down the
walk.
Charley felt distinctly miserable that
she had been snubbed, so she laughed
with merry abandon at the information
that Art Harkins never, under any cir
cumstances, took off his hat and would
undoubtedly eat Dade's wedding supper
with it on, and then she danced away
into the big empty hall, dragged her.
self slowly up the stairs and crept off
into an unfrequented garnet. Iu the
crowded house, this, since she fell in
love and needed one, had become her
place of meditation. She was over
wrought by the unaccustomed and star
tling amount of sensation her days now
brought her, and by dramatically pic
turing various unpleasant possibilities
to herself rs probabilities, though not
in tho least really believing in them,
she managed to relieve herself by few
tears, and then she crept over to the
ono small square low window that lit
the place. She sat on the floor and press
ed her face against the glass and gave
herself up to further dreaming, but now
Of vague, sweet possibilities, probabili-
ties. surely, surely
There were no other windows in the
house that looked down into the corner
Of the green yard she saw. 1t was shell
tered by big trellised grapevine, and
beneath its shade was an old garden
bench.
When Harry found chance to drag
Mrs. Peytee to this spot for confiden-
tial interview, it was under the delu-
sion that it was invisible to all indoors.
He and Mrs. Peytee were always very
good friends, and now, seized with
sudden need of sympathetic ear, it
was to her that no turned. That idea
about the ring that had slipped through
his head became fixed now by nothing
more or less personal to himself or Char
ley than tho chance he saw Of making
it an easy pretext for telling his tale to
Mrs. Peytee.
"Come, sit around by tho grapevine
with me-" no said when, turning back
TO tho house in his restless tramping,
he met her in tho yard.
Mrs. Peyteo was always gracious and
she took his arm with a flattering air OF
possession and interest, and dragging
her fresh trailing nuslins after her sho
sought with him the seclusion of tho
rustic bench beneath the shadow of the
grapevine.
IL was no thanks 10 Harry's wisdom
that no had not made decided blunder
in his selection of n confdant, for Mrs.
Pcytee, like many n better woman, was
all but sure to find a man in love an
odious and tiresome or anoble and graf
flying spectacle, according rs he was not
or was in loyo with herself, but now
she was moved &c. an unusual patience
with Harry, because sho was sure that
tho coloncl's eligibility for marriage
and in all probability his inclination to-
ward that state would DO much incrcas-
ed by Charley's entrance upon IL.
II want 20 measure your finger. Miss