The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1896-05-08

and was not ut all disposed to coafide
n Martha, who hid the hanae Of being
Pens sfs ssys walk Ssa GOSSIP ssa ne s wr IN
evenin',",. she continued, to account for
her stroll. :. =, -
Warm enough, bedad," said Martha,
you might say SO if it was in the hay
YOU'D been l come up Yesterday to
manin' to run over this evenin' and see
you, ,on'y something delayed me. And
what's the best good news wild you
this long whiley'
II dunno is there any news in par
tic'iar, bad or good" said Rossanne,
with Il, guilty: II could an 1 would" in
her mmd, as she thought of the pigs
supper
Then you haven't heard tell about
Dan McClean?" said Martha, suddenly
cranlng her neck over the tOpmost bar.
What about him at ally' said Ro.
soma, with great start.
You haven't heard?" Martha re-
Cant you tell me?" said Rosanne.
IN come over to you-just waltz"
said Martha: She launched her pitch,
fork across the gate, and began to scale
it's many bars with remarkable agility.
She had scarcely Topped to the ground,
on Rosanne's side of it, before she said:
what it isl
'rook up wild her?' said Rosanne,
staring up stupidity ut her cousin.
LAY. bedad. and SO he has," said
Martha, "but it come to my knowledge
on'y last Sunday. About gettin' MAR
ried they are after. the, hnrvest-he and
your stepmother's daughter. And he be
all accounts as good us promised to you,
ROSanner'
"Who was telling you so? He newer
set eyes on her till she came home after
EaSter> Dams no affair of mime
don't believe any such thing said Ro-
same. rattling the rusty bolt of the pad
Isl %Sass thy was al .1 tslkin, about it
eyenin' I taxed the young feller's mother
wild it, and she didn't deny it. Och, Ro-
same, but YOU was fine fool to let
your stepmOther pack you off to service
Hathaway, wild Maggie just comm
home. Earnin' money for yourself, be-
dad! Deed now what notion she had
in ripe gooseberry. Putin you out
of it was the way she'd have the chance
of gettin' young Dan for her own girl
and that's what she's after dom on
you
"She's welcome" said Rosanne desper-
ately.
''Och, that's just talkin', Rosanne,"
said Martha, \ was spakin about it to
he'd be none too we'll pleased, but he
said nothin' agin it. I suppose she had
him persuaded. poor man. And Dams
mother WAS AKIN me had l heard tell
anythin' about young chap was coort-
in you up here. Mark my words, that's
the story your stepmother's been putin
into fhn1, DIT
Clean there wasn't iotum of truth in
it as far rs I knew. And there isn't in
coorse?" Martha said, glancing again
rather suspiciously at the grand hat.
Maybe there is, and maybe there
isn't" said Rosanne defantly Its no
affair of anybody's. Let other people
mind their own business and I'll mind
mine. And let them phase themselves
the, pack of them-and they'll phase me.
I dunno which of them's the greatest
liar; but it's little T trouble meself about
them. And it's time for me to be run
min back, or else I'll be too late. So
good night to you kindly-och don't be
delayin me, you ould tormint!' Ro-
same Whisked the corner of her shawl
away down the field. AS she went she
struck up Norah Creina, and sang it
Justify rs long as she thought herself
within hearing; but her mind was not
at all occupied with that gentle, bashful
heroine. The sun had disappeared, be-
hind the rounded tops of Drimaree Wood
vivid lights had gone out among the hay
cocks and hedges. Everything had
grown dimly green, soft and cool, and
when she left off singing, not a sound
was to be heard. But her thoughts were
travelling through the scorching, kissing,
whirling chaos into which this thunder
hn1+ 81 ~ 1l>
before her. Dan, and the little house of
her own, and love and trust, and fine
wedding and the Aylesbury ducks Mrs.
COnrOy promised her, and her pride in
old Tim Donagh's remark that she had
got the best lad in the townland-all
were swept away from her, and in their
places seethed flood of jealousy, rage
and despair. AS it's first rush subsidized,
she recollected several things that seemed
like disregarded warnings of Martha's
news. She had wondered now and again
that Dan had never managed to get over
and see her between this and Easter;
and then the last time old Biddy Doran
from his place was up at the farm he
hadn't sent e'er a message by her at ALL
The reason was plain enough now And
with that, Rosanne bethought her of the
letter which she had sent by John Gahan
and which might be delivered by this
time. Perhaps Dan was at that minute
of time laughing with Maggie Walsh
over the suggestion that he should be
Rosanne Tierney at Kilbrackan. Cock
her up. This possibility was the cruel
little barb of modification by which the
crushing bulk of her misfortune caught
hold of her mind, and she ragged herself
for having ignorantly wrought it.
But circumstances seldom allow us to
rage long uninterrupted, and while Ro-
same walked on, the fields grew dim
mer, and the green grayer, and the
breeze chillier, and the grass wetter. I'M
til at last she found that the thorny
briers which twitched her by the shawl
as he passed them, were beginning to
ask her where she was going. 1t was
a puzzling question. To go home among
those false, scheming. triumphant Great
ures. could not for a moment be thought
Of. 1t would be more tolerable to return
crumlyn farm, and even that was quite
impossible. On such consideration as
she could give, only one answer occurred
to her. She would go to her Aunt Lizzie
Mahony, her mothers sister, who had
always been good natured and friendly.
The Mahonyss. it was true, lived .ather
a long step off, somewhere beyond Hew-
itstown; still she thought she could GER
tainly contrive to get there in the course
of the next day, and she knew they
would be glad to see her. After that,
her future was all drearily vague. She
supposed that she could get field work to
do, and sometimes she even thought
wildly of turning ballad singer. Dan
used to say that she had voice fit to
make her fortune; hut of course that
might only have been one of his lies, for
it was evident you could not believe a
word that came out of his head. The
further her feet and her reflections tray
eled, the more attractive grew the pct
ure of the Mahony's little white cottage,
with her aunt looking out at the door,
and saying: "Glory be to goodness if it
isn't Rosanne." For the fields around
her spread lonelier, and stranger, and
the moonlight began to fill them cruelty
with CHASTITY CLEANS and shades. At last
in a great fright she crept under Il hay
stack and shivered and dozed in unequal
alterations till the dawn.
PART II.
It found her Overwhelmingly miserable,
but delivered from the panic fears that