The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-06-30

with railway lines. bristling with chin
neys and disfigured by pits. had looked
| forward for a country walk and was
doomed 10 be sorely disappointed, and yet
for all that the infection Of the May sun
shine was not TO be resisted, and with
every strip Of grass that was trying TO be
/ green. and every meager daisy patch that
beside the road my spirits rose in spite
OF myself
When reached the Kings Forest
which was my destination, 1 thought
might as well have a lounge upon the
I grass before setting to business.
| The Kings Forest by the by, was
! not a forest at all. but a group of be-
1 tween thirty and forty trees stretching
/ down to the river side. and which some
/ how or other had escaped falling victim
| TO the general clearing away which had
/ stripped the country at the time that the
| railway was being built. But I was too
| sick of streets 70 be hard 10 please. There
were cowslips in the grass. and over there
| between two biackened old trunks I caught
! glimmer Of something white which I
/ suspected 10 be hawthorn, while flash
/ Of delicate lilac made me guess at the
I presence of spring crOcuses.
| Il would settle these points first. I de-
/ cided. but at that same moment I became
/ aware Of the sound Of voices and of some
/ thing that sounded like the rattle Of cups,
/ and before had made half-a-doze steps
bivouacking around a boiling kettle and
drinking their tea out of blue and white
cups. II was picnic party of course and in
deed. i have since convinced myself that il
is Impossible to visit the Kings Forest on
any moderately fine day without stumb-
ling upon at least one or two of these par
ties. From miles around pilgrimages were
made TO this one leafy island in the midst
of a shadeless sea. and hard work IL was
which the poor Forest had from May to
September, as could be guessed by the
flattened look Of the grass and the many
charred spots which had served as fire.
places.
Probably it would have been the dis
Greet thing to have given wide berth TO
the party on which / had come unawares,
and but for the color Of their cups l should
doubtless have behaved with perfect pro-
priety, but the habit of taking a nearer
view OF every likely piece Of crockery had
by this time almost become an instinct
with me, and l think ii was half uncon-
sciously that ] gave my steps the neces-
sary direction. l might have spared myself
the trouble, as l saw almost immediately
the tea-set was Enthusiastically modern and
quite out of It. in every item except its
color, which happened to be tolerably near
the mark. The party who were slipping
their tea out Of it consisted, as l saw upon
a closer view, of no more than three ladies
two elderly and young one, as upon a
closer view l perceived.
The young one was sitting bare-headed
in the broken shadow of the bceches, and
1 now became aware that what l had TAX
en- for hawthorn was no more than the
muslin scarf on her white straw hat which
she had hung on the bush beside her. while
il could only have been the hem of her pale
lilac skirt which had deceived me into the
belief that l should find crocuses growing
here
by rights I should have been disap-
pointed, but. strangely enough, having
taken another look at her face, l felt on
the contrary agreeably surprised Her un-
covered hair was as pale as gold and as
light as feathers-at least so il seemed to
me as the breeze passed over it, gently ruff
fling its yellow waVes-and her cheeks and
lips were more delicately rosy than any
spring flower that ever blossomed. In
common property 1t was impossible to go
near enough to decide the color of her
eyes, though for one moment 1 met her
gaze full, as with tea-cup poised in air and
white teeth flashing from between her
parted lips she raised her pretty head to
gaze with childish wonder at the intruder.
1t was then only that l became suddenly
and keenly aware of my indiscretion.
believe 1 actually dropped my eyes before
hers as l quietly skunk away with the
question already at work in my mind as
to whether her eyes were blue or grey.
when | reached the site of the old
bridge l stood for quite an unwarrantable
time staring at the bulky and decrepit con-
Germ without reaching any definite con-
clusion as to what l had come there for
Somehow or other ! felt ever so much less
business-lilSe than 1 had done when l left
my lodgings two hours ago. Even after
had aroused myself by pretty vigorous
shake to a sense of my duties 1t took some
time before the interest in the work be-
fore me succeeded in banishing from my
mind that golden-haired tea-drinking Wis
ion which | had Just seen under the beech
trees yonder.
THAT even my work had not succeeded
in entirely eXtinguishing the vision, be-
came apparent to me within the next few
days, when occasionally I found myself
drawing up In the middle of mathematical
calculations in order to wonder whether
my bridge-should il ever be built-would
ever be crossed by light-haired young la
dies in pale lilac frocks. 1t seemed to me
| almost as though a few of these nymph-
like creatures tripping daintily across the
| boards would be more distinctly becom,
| ing to the construction l was planning
| than any amount of ornamental sphynxes
| or lions could ever hope to be-
But l had not much time for these
| vagaries of fancy. The work grew hard
| er as it advanced, and various technical
| difficulties, which had at first escaped
| my attention, began to unmask them
selves. My first visit to the Kings For.
| est was by no means my last, and busy
| though L was l always found time to
note that though there were picnic par
ties in plenty, making the most of the
! precious shade, there never again hap,
pened to be a young woman with either
such golden-yellow or such feather-like
! hair.
The end I was looking for looked very
like forlorn hope. Every day the names
of the competitors seemed to me to be
multiplying, and well-known names one OF
two of them were, while mine was as
obscure as they say that of a well-be.
haved woman ought by rights to be. Az
last with many doubts and self-question.
ings, and much inward tremulousness.
sent in my plan, and now again there
was nothing TO do but to walk the streets
as l had done during the first fortnight n,
my stay at Currypool. and to wait for
the decision of my fate with as much