Evening star., 1896-02-08
Ruth nsE"<y Stuart.

mortals may know it, the possible heights
| of bliss.
| For the first time since the separation,
she clasped the valentine to her bosom ard
| called her lovers name over and over
again, sobbing it, without hope, as one in
| the death agony. But such emotion is not
of death. Is it not the rebirth of feeling
| So 1t was with Miss Jemima and the
| heart-stillness that had been her safety
| during all these years would never be hers
| again. There would never again be a time
When ner precious possession would not
| nave a sweet meaning to her--when it
would not be a tangible embodiment of the
| holiest thing her life had known
FROM TINS time forward, as an Offset to
tne budding romances about her, Miss Je-
NINA would repair for refuge and a mea-
| ger comfort to that which while in it's dis
coiored and fading face it denied none of
| own. "
The woman of forty never realizes her
years IN the presence of her contempora-
res. Forty women of forty might easily
Ieei young enough to scoff at the bald head,
anu deserve to be eaten by bears-but thir-
| lynne with budding maid for fortieth
| scoffer-Neyer, '-o '-'
MISS Jemma, in her suddenly realized
Souhg-ioFe setting, had become to her own
| Cohsciousness old and of a date gone nv
| aunt Jemlrna' was naturally regarded nv
| ner blooming nephews and nieces, as we'll
| as oy their intimates who wore their in
| cIpleht mustaches still within their con-
/
| ruduy cheeks, quite in the same category
as Mrs Gibbs, who was sixty, or any of
their aunts and grandmothers who sat
| Serenely in daguerreotvnn alone +ha o,I
| mantel. f"1-0
But there is apt to come a time in the life
OF tne hVe single woman of forty-if she be
| dhVe enough-when in the face of even
nesatNe and affectionate disparagement,
| she is moved to declare herself
| Perhaps there be some who would saw
! that this declaration savors of earth. Even
| So the earth is the Lords. 1t is one thing
| to be a flower pasted in a book and ou1te
another to be the bud a maiden wears
one thing to be Today and another to be
| Y Yesterday.
One thing. indeed. 1t was to own yell
low. time-stained valentine, and quite a
different one to be of the dimpled throng
| who crowded the Smpkinsvile post office
| on Valentines day.
Il reckon them young ones would think
| 1t was perfectly re-diclous eff 1 was to git
| valentine at my time of life," Miss Jen::-
| ma said, aloud. to her looking glass one
| morning. 1t was the day before St VAL
| entines of the year following her day of
| tears.
But I'll show 'em," she added with
| some resolution,as she turned to her bureau
| drawer.
| And she did show them On the next day
| great envelope addressed to Miss Jemirna
| Martha Sprague came in with the package
! OF lesser favors, and Miss Jemima sudden
| ly found herself the absorbing center of a
| new lnterest-an interest that after having
| reVolved about her awhile flew off in sus-
| picion toward every superannuated bache-
| Ior or widower within radius of thirty
| miles of SiElpknsville.
1t had been great moment for Miss
Jenllna when the valentine came in and
a trying one when, with genuine old-time
flushes. she refused to open it for the crowd
How she felt an hour later, when in the
secrecy OF her own chamber she took from
its new envelope her own old self-sent val
entine, only He who has tender knowledge
or ma1denly reserves and SORROWS will ever
know.
There was something in her face that for
tade cruel pursuit of the subject when she
returned to the family circle, and so, after
little playful bantering, the subject was
| dropped
But the incident had lifted her from one
| condition into quite another in the family
/ regard, and Miss Jemima found herself un-
i consciously living up to younger standards
But thls was ten years ago, and the mys-
| ferrous valentine had become a yearly fact
There had never been any explanations
When pressed to the wall, Miss Jemima
had, indeed, been constrained to confess
tnat certainly every valentine she had ever
gotten had been sent her by a man (how
sweet and sad this truthD.
ANA are all the new ones pretty as
! your lovely old one, Aunt 'Mmie?''
To this last query she had carefully re-
| piled:
II amt never got none thet amt every
bit an grain ez purity ez that one-not
AN why don't you show 'em to US, them"
Such obduracy was indeed hard to COM
| prehend.
| IT. as the years passed. her brother began
| to suspect, he made no sign of it save in
| an added tenderness. And of course, he
| could not know.
| On the anniversary upon which this little
record of her life had opened the situation
was somewhat exceptional.
The valentine had hitherto always been
mailed in Simpknsville-her own town
This postmark had been noted and COM
n1ented upon, and yet it had seemed i'm
possible to have 1t otherwise But this
year, in spite of many complications and
difficulties, she had resolved that the en-
velope should tell a new story.
The farthest point from which, within
her possible acquaintance, 1t would natur-
ally hail WIS the railroad town of-let us
call 1t Hope.
The extreme difficulty in the case lay in
the fact that the post office here was kept
by her old lover, Eli Taylor.
Here for ten years he had lived his reti-
cent bachelor days, selling plows and gar
den seed, and cotton prints and patent
medicines, and keeping post office in a
small corner of his store.
Everybody knows how a spot gaZed al in
tently for long time cEar ges color-from
red to green and then to white
AS Miss Jenima pondered upon the
thought of sending herself valentine
through her old lovers hands, the color of
the sci eme began to change from i'm
possible giten to rosy red
The point of objection became in the
mysterious evolution it's objective point
Instead of dreading she began ardently to
desire tEis thing
By the only possible plan by which she
could manage secretly to have the valen-
tine mailed in Hope-a plan over which she
had lost sleep, and in which she had been
finally aided by an illiterate colored SER
want going there, to return next day-it
must reach her on the day before Valen-
tines.
This day had come and gone-and her
valentine had not returned to her. Had
the negro failed to mail it? Had ii re-
ma!ned all night in the post office-in pos
session of her lover? Would she ever see
1t again? Would her brother ever get
through his trifling with the children and
finish giving out their valentines?
PART H.
Miss Jemima had not long to wait. and
yet 1t seemed age. before the distribu-
ton was over, and she felt rather than saw
her brother moving in her direction
Bigger an purifier one n ever for Aunt
Minnie this time-looks to me like" he said,
as at last he laid the great envelope upon
her trembling knee.
Don't reckon it's anything extry-in
particular" she answered. not at all know