The St. Johns herald., 1897-05-01
Lifted her from the doorstep.

existence till but now they had ignored, and their dancing, by the way, though a trife more energetic than is fashiona- ble, was not bad
 For time all went swimmlngly, though the demoralizing features of so- cial democracy grew upon Harry when he asked Charley to dance with him, only to be told that she had already promised more dances than she expect ed to perform.
 A new quadrille was just forming when something happened-in fact, good deal happened all at once, or so near it that the effect was the same, and now I sympathize with Carlyle in his despairing sense of the inadequacy of narration, which must proceed by se- quences, to the task of portraying his tory, where things are always happening simultaneously. It is like trying to draw house with one line.
 Mrs. Peytee was standing up to dance with the bridegroom and was near the open door. As the inevitable preliminary squeaks issued from the fiddle a man, in her own phrase, ''lunged" through the door, threw an arm violently around her waist ard-was knocked down by the bridegroom. Mrs. Peytee was not the woman to throw away any cards fate in the course Of the game put lHto her hands. She flew into the arms of the colonel, who had risen precipitately from his seat by the fire, crying piteously up- on him, her Cousin Charles, for protec- tion. One of the young Harkinses, not too sober himself, alas recognized in the ill., toxicated intruder his long lost brother in tho Texas penitentiary he had been when last heard of-and, suddenly fired by that ardor of blood relationship al- ways So easily awakened by thoso intrud- CTS known as ''kjn by marriage, y he fell un0a the bridegroom with blows 2 T uC prOJuer ruSa .,liu P1vev=e,,-,------ his own part a o'eiI, and Ill seven sec 0nds from his e~trancc all the men Ill The place were Ill one wild melee, and ] the women were hGddled together as far l off as they could get, some screaming, ] some fainting, while Mrs. Harkins and i DttuS, SllTEGtl DS a blutISIG SpII1iS 1Ouu- l Iy called upon Art and Bill and ''you, J ! Hank, to be ashamed of themselves, and i to stop their 'ScandalOus' behavior, in terspersiDg their adjurations with severe l comments on the male sex generally and individually and with some very sound abuse of tho whisky, which was indeed i at the bottom of the trouble. There was something comforting to the other Wo- men in their accustomed air through all this. but even their wrathful equan1m1ty broke down when the sound of pistol shot rang ont. It was fired by the youn' ger Harkins boy, who only aimed at the wall and was merely carrying out hls youthful ideas of what was fitting.
 A few minutes before the TOW began Charley had stepped out of doors with
 the other young man to look at the
 moon. She was so tired of him that she had then invented an errand to get TIC of him for five minutes and had sent him to look in the buggy for supposltl
 tious fan. Just as the shot was fired she appeared, white faced, ill the doorway, much nearer the indistinguishable com
 batants and peacemakers than any of the
 other women:
 ''Go back, Miss Charleyl For Gods
 sake, go away!'' Harry cried out, hl'
 voice saying a deal more than his words
 but Charley didn't go back. She onl.