The Madison daily leader. [volume] (Madison, S.D.) 1890-current, 1895-07-12
THE PAINTER.

VI course 1t was very wrong of her
for we all know that you should no.
talk to gentlemen who have not been in
troduced to you. But when you arr
sweet and 90 and are staying ut a coun
try house all alone and are rather bored,
and a handsome young man m tc
your rescue in a wood, when your poor
little dog has caught its foot in q cruel
trap, how a You possibly pass him by
the very next day as if he were q stran.
ger? And he was SO kind to the dog
He bound up its poor little bleeding foot
in his handkerchief and carried it in his
arms to the lodge gate. Then he said:
do you often walk in the wood:"
She was feeling too grateful to him
to resent his impertinence as she should
have done. So she only said, "Some-
times" and thanked him again with all
her heart in her pretty eyes.
He looked up to where, through the
trees, the big red house showed its twist
ed, old fashioned chimneys and said:
MY name is Lavender. Yon are Miss
Verinder, I SUPPOSE"
She looked at him quickly.
Il am Miss Verinder's humble com
panion. My name is Smith"
eve are comrades in servitude, he
said. Il am Lord Halibut's secretary.
You walk i'll the woods sometimes. Then
it isn't goodby. Do they let you come
out often?"
Il am my own mistress at present."
she said. "A lot of people will be com
ing down on the 25th for the heiress'
coming of age. They give a grand enter
talnment to the tenants. Lord Halibut
is to be there. What is he like:''
"Oh!' said the young man indiffer-
emily, hes not "A bad sort of fellow.
There's some talk of their families wish
ing him to marry the heiress. The es-
tates go very we'll together. But he's
never even seen her. He's been SO much
abroad, You know"
Il don't believe the heiress will have
him. the girl said sharply and turned
away with her poor little dog in her
arms.
Now, it is quite clear that she ought
not to have walked in the wood-at
least, not SO soon as the next day, or if
she walked there the next day she ought
not to have chosen the very hour when
poor Troll had met with his misfortune.
But to the bored much may be pardoned,
and, as for Lord Halibut's secretary, he
had a right, one may suppose, to amuse
himself. And that meeting was not the
last. How could it have been? And when
you meet a person every day without
~chaperons o. other tiresome people you
soon make friends. Before the week was
out Mr.. Lavender had heard how Miss
Smith was left an orphan and had to
earn her living, and she had learned
that Mr.. Lavender's part in life must
always be that Of a subordinate.
lis she kind to you?" he asked one
evening as they sat on q messed tree
trunk and watched the red sunset across
the valley where the corn grew.
"Oh, yes, she's kind enough" the
girl said. "At least I am sure she means
t be-"
She's revoltingly clever, 1 hear. Beat
something
"She did. But that's not criminal,
and Lord Halibut is at least her partner
in lniqulty. He took a first class in
greats, didn't he: Oh, how l do hate
clever men,
lyon have my sympathy. l abhor
clever women!'
They both laughed. And the DAYS
went on, and July melted into August,
and August grew in grace, till the time
came near for the coming of age of Miss
Verlnder, and if during these days there
had been Q hand pressure so slight as
not to be worth resenting, or a look SO
nearly tender as to make a mans heart
~ beat high with hope; if he had treasured
the forgetnlenots she gathered by the
Woodland pond and pressed them in the
volume OF Browning from which he had
read to her i'll the woods, and if she kept
a certain handkerchief, stained with
poor little Trolls blood, in a locked
sandalwood box, and took it out and
laid 1t against her face, for all it's blood
stain, when no II else was by-all that
concerned only the companion and the
secretary, and no one else in all the
wide world.
" 1t was bright noontide. and they
walked through the woods, and present.
ly they came to the wishing tree, with
its two trunks growing from one root.
IF we pass through the wishing
tree she said, land wish as we 90. the.
fairies will give us the wish of our
hearts"
So they went through, hand in hand,
because the way was rough. As she
passed out Of it a bramble caught her
dress, and hs stopped to disentangle it.
but the folds of her gown were electric.
and his hands trembled.
How tiresome it isl" she said. IT
believe that bramble will never let me
CO."
"Can You blame it," he asked, look
ing up at her, and she turned her face
away. They walked on. "A whole
month, he said, land seeing you every
day! When did such good fortune ever
before come to a poor secretary?''
"Or toa humble companion? No,
don't mean that. But it has been pleas
ant