Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1896-07-31

then a fierce splash of rain came against
the window. Suddenly, without any warn
ing, the latch was lifted, and Qphelia came
in, with faint smile on her face, and
seated herself beside the fire. She had
walked far, it seemed, for her clothes were
travel-stained and worn. When her father
broke out in tremulous thanksgiving, she
turned a pair of vacant wondering eyes
upon his face, and to his eager question
ing she made no answer. At first Jacob
was too entirely bent on making his
daughter welcome to notice to the full her
apathy. He made her change her wet
clothes, and babe her notice how carefully
he had preserved her things, but she only
looked at them with the same faint indiff-
erent smile. Then he bethought him she
must be hungry and he made haste to set
food before her, which she ate obediently,
but in the same absent way. At length
the truth began to dawn on Jacob; he
ceased from questioning her, and made
ready instead the bed she was to sleep on.
Outside the storm rose, and through the
night Jacob watched by the fire with the
wind bowling wild accompaniment to his
thoughts. When the morning broke the
rain had ceased, and the wind was dying
away in ftful gusts. Jacob reused him
self and began to put the cottage in order
before Ophelia should waken. He shook
and folded her clothes, which had hung by
the fire through the night to dry; as he
did so something fell from among them to
the ground. Jacob stopped and lifted it;
as he looked at it CHASTITY pallor over
spread his face, and he sank down heavily
on the chair near him. 1t was a baby's
knitted shoe.
Jacob was absent from the cottage for
some hours, but when he returned Ophela
was still calmly sleeping. He drew from
his breast the little wooden boot, and drop
ping it into the fire watched it curl up in
the fame. Then he went on with the prep
arations for breakfast.
For many days after this he kept to his
old habit of peering about as he walked
and poking his stick into the wayside tan
giles and clumps of heather and gorse, so
that folks said he was crazy like his daugh-
| ter, and that he forgot she had come home :;
but by degrees this new fear left him, and
he settled down into the quiet monotony of
the life he has lived ever since.
No clue as to Ophelias life in thosetw elve
months was ever discovered. She had re-
| turned as mysteriously as she had gone, and
| though inquiries were made on every side,
| no one was ever found who had seen or
heard of her. From the girl herself moth
| ing could be learned; her mind was hope
| lessly gone. Gentle and submissive she
had always been and so she remained; but
she was alike indifferent to her fathers af-
| lection and to the neighbors' curiosity. She
very rarely spoke but went her ways with
| the same faint smile she had worn the night
of her homecoming. The most marked
change in her was her passion for long
walks. In the old days she had scarcely
been beyond the limits of the village; now
she would wander for hours over moor and
| fell in all sorts of weather. Twenty years
ago the GOOD People" still dwelt among
the fells, and there were not wanting, in
the village, folk who believed that Ophelia's
| time had been spent with these, and that
in her walks she hoped to find her play
mates again. In these rambles her father
became her faithful guardian, for, though
he did not fear the "Good People, he al
ways had the dread that she might lose her
| footing in her careless straying over those
steep and rocky hillsides, and wherever she
went he followed, walking generally few
yards behind.
So, for twenty years, they have rambled
| over the country, Ophelia with her gentle
| vacant smile and unruffled brow, Jacob
threadbare and more feeble. Ophelia has
often a basket of blackberries or mush-
rooms, which she loses as fast as she gath
ers, or bunch of wild flowers and grasses
in her hand. Jacob waits, leaning patient
ly on his stick, while his daughter makes
her meaningless pauses in their walk. 1t
was thus found them one day this sum-
mer, on fair hillside, with, behind us, the
heather in early bloom against cloudless
sky, and Langton sending up thin wreaths
of blue smoke in the valley below. tried
to draw Jacob into talk on his old favorite
subject; he listened to my utilities in ST.
lence, and when at length came to a pause
he said
eyes, sir, as you say, great poet" He
was silent for moment, and his eye trav-
eled to where his daughter was wandering
aimlessly in the mushroom field; a great
sadness came over his face. 81 blame my
self, he said, 81 sometimes blame myself
greatly, sir, for having called her Ophelia."