Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1896-03-12
THE LANDSCAPE PAINTER.

for we all know that you should not
talk to gentlemen who have not been
introduced to you. But when you are
sweet and twenty, and are staying at
a country house all alone. and are
rather bored, and handsome young
man comes to your rescue in a wood
when your poor little dog has caught
his foot in cruel trap, how can you
possibly pass him the very next day
as If he were stranger? And he was
so kind to the dog. He bound up its
poor little bleeding foot in his handker-
chief, 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,
Sometimes" 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
twisted old-fashioned chimneys, and
said.
My name is Lavender, You are
MISS Nerlnder, l suppose
She looked at him quickly
Il am Miss Verinder's humble COM
panion. My name is Smith
"We are comrades in servitude," he
said. Il am Lord Halibut's secretary.
You walk in 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
coming down on the 25th for the
heiress's coming of age. They give a
grand entertainment 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
wishing him to marry the heiress. The
estates 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 answered 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
. tots he hod rtC
may suppose, to amuse himself. And
that meeting was not the last. How
could it have been? And when you
meet person every day without chap
erones or other tiresome people, you
can soon make friends. Before the
week was out Mr.. Lavender had heard
I 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 sub
ordinate.
rs she kind to your" he asked one
evening, as they sat on messed tree
trunk, and watched the red sun set
across the valley, where the corn 81 ew.
''Oh, yes, she's kind enough" the girl
said; "at least, | am sure she means to
60"
She's revoltingly clever, | hear
Beat the Senior Wrangler at Cam
bridge, or something"
She did But that's not criminal
ana Lord Halibut is, at least, her part
ner in iniquity. He took first-class
in Greats, didn't he? Oh, how | do
hate clever men,
You have my sympathy. / 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 Verinder; and If, during these
days, there had been hand pressure
so slight as not to be worth resenting
mans heart beat high with hope; If
I he had treasured the forget-me- nots
4 she had gathered by the woodland
pond, and pressed them in the volume
of Browning from which he had read
4 to her in the woods, and If she kept
certain handkerchief, stained with
poor little Trolls blood, in a locked,
sandalwood box, and took it out and
+ laid it against her face, for all its
bloodstain, when no one 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 pres
emily they came to the wishing-tree,
with its two trunks growing from one
root.
IF we pass through the wishing
tree" she said, and wish as we CO.
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, bramble caught her
dress, and he stopped to disentangle
il but the folds of her gown were
electric and his hands trembled.
How tiresome it isl she said; Il
believe that bramble will never let me