The Forrest City times. [volume] (Forrest City, Ark.) 1871-1919, 1898-12-23


shadow escaped Hillhouse. In a jifry
he had seized his hat and was knocking
At her door.
~ have observed from my window
/ am your neighbor,' he exclaimed. To-
eating his eerie den across the way
that you have met with an accident.
/ am not without some mechanical
skill, and / thought / might be of serv-
ice'
'She opened the door wide for him
to enter. In the dignity of her pres.
ence the shabby gentility of her sur
roundings vanished.
"'You are kind, SIR she said. To
morrow is Christmas
"'Ah! so it is said Hillhouse Il had
forgotten
Il promised to take Christmas din
ner yesterday after long years of sep
aration. There is little boy in the
family, and l thought the toy would
amuse him.
"'And so it will laughed Hillhouse
as it has you and me-
"She colored like an old-fashioned
garden pink, and her limpid gray eyes
dropped as he picked up the mutilated
monkey. In less time than it takes to
tell, this grotesque representative of
the missing link was restored to its
pristine agility.
"'How can l thank your
"'By telling me some day. said Hill
house, that your young friends en-
joyment of the toy has been greater
than ours
"Some days elapsed before Hillhouse
had the courage to knock second time
at his neighbor's door In the inter
val he had learned a little of her his
tory. 1t was not without purpose that
he scanned the bookcase until his eyes
lighted on strangely familiar volume.
81 see Miss Foxglove is an admirer
of Lucille remarked Hillhouse.
"'It belongs to the past
"Then it has not been opened for
some time?'
Miss Foxglove's gray eyes turned
within.
"a quarter of century, she said.
"He took the volume from the shelf,
and with strange misgiving turned the
leaves until arrested by much under
scored canto, from which fell faded
foxglovc.
with smile whose divinely deep sweet
| ness disclosed
Some depths in her nature he never had
| known
"The eyes of Lavinia Foxglove met
his
"'The volume has never been opened,
she said sudden pallor in her queenly
presence-'since an old, old friend Dor.
rowed it, returned it-and then
then
"'What happened"
"'He wen, away
"'And then?'
"'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 i'll vain to hear from the lips OF
the borrower so long ago."
"You don't mean to tell u.s." cried
Miss Dashaway, "that there lives in
this age a man stupid enough to ex-
pect a woman to look in 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
devoured every word underscored
while she naturally laid the volume
away and never looked at 1t again until
Hillhouse opened it and bade her read
the lines which embodied his proposal
Not having heard from her, he went
away in moment of pique and never
returned. From time to time he heard
of her conquests, but it seems they were
but flirtations which he strove in vain
to forget. Youth passed away as did
her family ties, until she was left alone
in the world with mere pittance that
cut her off from the gay circle in which
she was once SO brilliant an ornament"
"How does it come. Betram," said
Pentland, that your quasi-Austen hero.
inc escaped clubdom?"
mo reflection on club women" re-
proved the hostess. ITO forget history
there is nothing like helping to make
it,"
"Bravo," cried the telegraph editor.
II can understand Miss Foxglove, y
said Mrs. Wetherell, giving the story
teller a sympathetic smile. ''She was
born too early to grasp the spirit OF
the new movement and adjust herself
to its exactions. Being an offspring
of the old order of things, she clung
instinctively to a belief that her hearts
desire would some day be fulfilled.
As she waited. opportunity slipped by"
"If l recollect rightly" said Froth-
ingham, everything had plenty of time
to slip by in Jane Austen story"
"But isn't it time for the cleric"
smiled Mrs. Wetherell. "Jane Austen
without the clergy is Hamlet without
the prince"
Betram's glowing eyes took in the
| guests who had followed his story with
the bantering old friendship admits.
Tomorrow at high noon," said he,
sRev. DIR. Broughton will await you at
the Red Brick church. and after the