The leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1895-1905, 1898-12-21

he scanned the bookcase until his eyes
lighted on strangely familiar volume.
~ see Miss Foxglove is an admirer
of Lucille remarked Hillhouse.
at belongs TO the past
Then it has not been opened for
some time?'
Miss Foxglove's gray eyes turned
within.
"a quarter of a century, she said.
"He took the volume from the shelf,
and with strange misgiving turned the
leaves until arrested by a much under
scored canto from which fell faded
foXgloyc.
with a smile whose divinely deep sweet
ness disclosed
Some depths in her nature he never had
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"
"'lle went away.
"'And then?'
1.-The world changed
she took the volume lIillhouse 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
no
this age a man stupid enough to ex-
pect n 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 UNDERSIGNED,
while she naturally laid the volume
away and never looked at it again until
Hillhouse opened it and babe 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 iirtations which he stroye 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"
well, she must be moss-grown
foxglove," laughed Miss Dashaway. "a
thought the species extinct. Fancy a
modern woman pining over delin-
quent lover, burying herself in hall
room with an Angora cat and window
garden!"
How does it come, Betram." said
Pentland, that your quasi-Austen hero
inc escaped clubdom?"
NO 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, "
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 it's eNactions. Being an offspring
of the old order of things, she chung
instinctively to a belief that her heart s
desire would some day be fulfilled.
As she waited. opportunity slipped by"
IF | recollect rightly said Froth-
ingham, everything had plenty of time
to slip by in Jane Austen story"
But isn't il time for the cleric p
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,
''Rev. DIR. Broughton will await you a /
the Red Brick church. and after the
ceremony Lavinia and will be at home
at the studio-its latch string, YOU
know, is always out-where we hone
to dispense Christmas cheer through.
out the year."
THE deuce!" cried the city editor.
you said the chaps name was Hill.
house."
And so IL is" smiled the sculptor
Return Hillhouse Betram." = Ida
Ross McCabe, in Detroit Free Press.