The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-11-21

fall in love with him. The rector was
young and good-looking; he had been
in his present pastorate six months
and he had already had an experience.
The young rector lived with his
books, occasionally taking a little
recreation in the garden. The roses
disappeared, the leaves fell and left the
clinging vines bare, and the snow COW
cred the prim little beds in the rectory
garden. Thus a year of his pastorate
closed. and the spring drew near.
The Rev Weatherby Smiles, from his
study window, could look across his
garden plot and see the brown earth
warming in the spring sunshine and
the trees and bushes slowly bursting
into leaf. Nature is always most at
tractive in the spring, and nature in
a thousand ways, with bud, and leaf,
and warming earth and white-fiecked
sky, and sweet air, WOoed him from his
books.
He looked across his garden, [ say.
And across the garden, beyond the
low hedge, was another garden which,
noticed the brilliant-hued beds the year
before, but now the only bit of color
was a pale blue morning robe thai
fitted about the enclosure.
To tell the truth, the rector had sell
dom noticed that morning gown, or the
little woman inside it, before. But it
pleased his fancy now to look across
the hedge and watch his neighbor. He
recalled that his old major domo had
told him that the cottage next the par
sonage was occupied by a widowed
lady-a lonely creature who had taken
up her abode there but shortly before
the Rev. Smiles was settled over st.
James. He remembered the little fig
ure in black in one of the side pews,
pointed out to him by the clerk, as
Mrs Scorritch," and probably had
not given her a thought or a glance
afterward.
However, he saw so much OF the pale
blue gown that first warm week in
spring that he looked for the little
widow in her pew the next Sabbath.
She had laid aside her weeds, and was
dressed in some soft, clinging, faWn-
colored material, that made her look
like very demure little moth. And
she had the sweetest face in the Wo
at least, the sweetest face in Rev.
Wetherby Smiles world.
On Monday morning, the clerical
black appeared in the rectory garden
almost as soon as the pretty morning
robe appeared over the hedge. The de-
mure little face dimpled and smiled
under it's garden hat at the rector's APP
proach, and the widow nodded brightly.
You are early at your gardening this
spring, Mrs. Scorritch," he said.
Eyes; but it is so warm she replied
in defense. Il am expecting my cro-
cuses to appear any day now
I'm afraid we shall see some frost
yet, Mrs Scorritch,' said the rector.
Now, don't talk that way, l beg!"
cried the little woman, clasping her
hands, enclosed in long wristed and
particularly well-ftting gaurtlets.
Just suppose my crocuses should come
up and be frost-bitten! Oh, the thought
is too awful
81 sincerely hope you will not be dis
appointed; but this climate is uncer-
tain"
After that the young rector often
found it quite necessary for his health
to work in his garden while the blue
gown Qlitting like butterfly from
rose tree to vine, and from vine to
hedgerow) was in evidence in the
neighboring yard. Really, after porting
over musty theological tones all win
ter a man must get some freshness in
his soul and new blood in his heart.
The gardening went on apace and
the treacherous warm weather contin-
ued. Many were the conferences held
across the hedge regarding the proper
pruning of rose trees, the planting OF
hardy seeds, and the preparation of the
beds of earth. The rector had never
suspected there was so much detail to
the business of gardening
One morning, just after warm night
rain, Rev Smiles was called to the
hedge by little cry from his neigh
Dor.
They are comingr she cried in de-
light. ''SeeI here is the dearest little
blade of green pushing up through the
1nold-and there is another-and an
other! Just look at themi"