The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-01-03

and very delightful old maids they were.
,.bev lived in one of those quaint old-world
yirIages near London which were once the
oountry-quite the country-but which are
ranidlv. owing to train communications
and the everspreading dimensions of the
canital, becoming mere suburbs of the
great metropolis.
The Misses Shoosmith had lived at the
Hermitage Hendon, all their lives. 1t was
10 the Hermitage many long years ago,
when the country was in its youth, that
their papa, highly respectable trades
man in the Edgeware road, had brought
home his young wife, and to the Hermit
age he had retired, when, a few years
later, having amassed a comfortable little
competency, he sold his business and de-
voted himself to the pleasures of country
lfe-as country life suggested itself to
the limited views of a born cockney. He
loved his garden, though he didn't know
the name of anything that grew in it.
He kept dog, whose principal amusement
was getting into all the mud it could find
and then jumping up at his master and
putting a dirty paw upon his coat or his
wastcoat Until he kept dog, Mr., Shoe
smith had been in the habit of disporting
himself for eight months in the year in
nankeen trousers and a white waistoat
but when it became a question of the nan
keen trousers and white waistcoat or the
dog, both together being impossible, he
sacrificed his personal appearance to his
love for his canine companion. He wore
dark trousers and a dark waistcoat, and
the marks of esteem lavished on his habila-
ments by Bruno. the brown retriever
became a less costly item in his washing
bill. They were traces of affection which
could be removed with clothes brush.
Mrs Shoosmith- dear Mama as she
was still called by the Misses Shoosmith
when they were old grey-haired women
was a country lady born and bred, and
she understood rabbits and fowls, and,
but for an unfortunate accident, would
have eventually reconciled her husband to
Il bees The accident occurred one late sum-
mef's evening, when Mr.. Shoosmitha re-
4 turning from a convivial meeting the
81 annual dinner of the "Bluebottles," club
after Mr.. Pickwicks own heart, of which
& he was an honored member-made an ex-
& traordinary mistake about his gravel path,
a very long and winding one, leading up to
the rustic porch of The Hermitage, and
. came into collision with the hive and over
turned it, He lived for the next week in
the strict retirement of the back parlor,
with various soothing unguents on his face
3 and head and neck.
The Misses Shoosmith had inherited
from their papa a comfortable competence
and love of domestic animals, and from
q their mamma a knowledge of domestic
horticulture, a light hand at pastry, and
+ much cunning with herbs, simples and
the preparation of homemade wines and
slndry beverages of a mildly alcoholic
character.
q The cowslip wine and the rhubarb wine
& Of The Hermitage were household words
among the select circle of acquaintance
in Hendon, and their elderberry wine
e taken hot on a winters night was de-
3 cared by the Rev. Mr.. Jones, the curate,
10 be one of the finest restoratives to the
4 nerves after long round of ministration
10 sick and INDECENT cottagerS, that he
mad ever met with in his life. He was so
dehghted with it that he went so far as
10 get Miss Deborah Shoosmith to copy
out the recipe for him, and he forwarded
u with pair OF wooden stockings and
req WOODEN shawl to his mother, an amia-
Ole Old widow lady, who lived with an in
valid daughter in poor, but respectable,
lodgings in the neighborhood of Kings
Cross.
The Misses Shoosmith were old-fashion-
Gu Iolks in many ways, and in none more
man in their adhesion to the superstitions
which their mother had inculcated into
hef minds in their early childhood. Mrs.
Shoosmth had not only practiced old
ashioned Charms" for warts and styes,i
ahd sore eyes and nose bleeding, but she
d ds a deVout believer in dreams and
ghs and omens, and the power of certain
Hl-disposed persons to bring ill-luck to
ryohe against whom they entertained
pieful feeling. She had once, when
MID, seen a witch" ducked in the horse
Ond of her native village, and the i'm
Iesslon made upon her by the episode had
emained unobliterated through her long
i u. eminently respectable and useful life.
without going so far as to believe that
Tlaln cunning old women held direct
oImunication with the evil one, and
ooK occasional aerial trips on broom
uCKs' she yet maintained that they were
wUches' and when her husband endeav-
ou 10 argue it out with her, from the
onmon-sense point of view of a retired
auesman of full habit of body, she
ouiu triumphantly refer him to the Old
es'ament, give him chapter and verse
the Witch of Endor, and ask him IL
was Christian or an infidel, and then
the fiftieth time she would relate tho
10y OF old Dame Truepenny, whom she
au seen thrown into the horse pond after
A%%.tug been proved to have bewitched a
boie family at neighboring farm, and
would harrow her daughters feelings
nj such an extent with an account of a
AK cat who was the DANES "Famil-
EaA mat the trembling girls would pass a
sut oil terror In each others arms,
lung up at every sound, and expecting
zee me cleaning eyes OF Dame True.
s Ivy black cat fixed upon them in the
mere was one other superstition which
'ate Mrs. Shoosmith had left as legacy
"er children, and that was a belief In
occult powers OF the Children of
MseSyp1 VINO wander about the country with
IA ana tents, and read the fortunes in
Wer fee. ~ 'Nei' WIN sn'
- me years went on, and the middle
roy. splnsters left alone in the world.
49, INTO old women, they gradually
H. s,,. 70 the influence of their more mod
MI. urroundings, and lost some of their
III credulity. But they still believed
No5rnae rs and in good and bad luck, In
H. a. IN the fire, in thieves in the cam
Eme1 u IN the bowling Of a dog as an
No. OF death, and IN tba calaunittos