Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1898-12-24

lt StdDuCu NAc bObNCdSC uuill lie ~ ca
lighted on a strangely familiar volume,
al see Miss Foxglove is an admirer
of Lucille remarked Hillhouse.
"1t belongs to the past
"'Then it has not been opened for
some time?'
Miss Foxglove's gray eyes turned
within.
ga quarter of a century, she said.
ale took the volume from the shelf,
and with strange misgiying turned the
leaves until arrested by a much under
scored canto, from which fell a faded
foXglovc.
With a smile whose divinely deep sweet
ness disclosed
Some depths in her nature he never had
known
1.-The eyes of Lavinia Foxglove met
his.
1.-The volume has never been opened
she said sudden pallor in her q~ueenly
presence-'since an old, old friend Dor.
rowed it, returned it-and then
then
"What happened"
ale went away
"'And them
1.-The world changed
"She took the volume Hillhouse hand.
ed her to read in the lines the foXglove
had stained the confession she had
waited in vain to hear from the lips OF
the borrower so long ago"
"You don't mean to tell u.s." cried
Miss D%ashaway, that there lives in
this age a mar stupid enough to en-
pect a oma to look in u book for a
%proposal?"
: But that happened a quarter of a
century ago" laughed Mrs. Pentland.
True" said Betram, land the poor
| lout supposed that the girl had eagerly
i devoured every word UNDERSIGNED,
while she naturally laid the volume
away and never looked at il again until
Hillhousc opened it and babe her read
the lines which embodied his proposal
Not having heard from her, he went
away in a moment of pique and never
returned. From time 10 time he heard
of her conquests, but it seems they were
. but iiirtations which he strove in vair
to forget. Youth passed away, us die
her family ties, until she was left alone
in the world, with a mere pittance tina,
Il cut her of from the gay circle in which
{ she was once so brilliant an ornament
swell, she must be a moss-growr
u foxglove," laughed Miss Dashaway. -.
II thought the species extinct. Fancy {
: modern woman pining over a delin
{ quent lover, burying herself in a hall
" room with an Angora cat and a window
garden!"
"How does it come, Betram," sad
Pentland, that your quasi-Austen baro
, inc escaped clubdomw
:. mo reflection on club wom,n,' e
! proved the hostess. ITO forg, his n,
there is nothing like helpirs 10 nak,
It," s
a Bravo" cried the tes grlph sd Il
- ~ can understand Miss i'oxgio I
>. said Mrs. Wetherell, giving the storj
;s teller n sympathetic smile, "Sho lya
~ born too early to grasp the spirit 0
h the new movement and adjust herse3
~ to its exactions. Being an oiTsprin,
n of the old order of things, she elm.
n instinctively to a belief that her heart
desire would some day be fulfilled
ID AS she waited, opportunity slipped by.
Il. "If | recollect rightly" said troih
10 ingham, everything had plenty Of inn
10 to slip by in u Jane Austen stor "
N "But isn't it time for the cleric?
h. smiled Mrs. Wetherell. Jane s.tuste,
n. without the clergy is Hamlet withou
al the prince" w
Betram's glowing eyes took in tn
guests who had followed his story Wit
the bantering old friendship admit.
he Tomorrow at high noon," said h
"Rev. DR.. Broughton will await yoaa
er the Red Brick church, and after III
be ceremony Lavinia and l will be Ut nom
en- at the studio-its latch string yoI
It, know. Is always out-where w eJap
lie. to dispense Christmas cheer through
H. out the year."
,r. "The deucel" cried the clty .ASfe,
n "iou said the chaps name VIVA 4jiI
he house." &s
lie "And so II is" smiled the scnlptok-
in Return Hillhouse Betram. Id,
~ Ross McCabe, in Detroit Freerrvxs,