The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1898-02-02

c nldren, every room was filed.
At such times, Mr.. Marriott appeared
to glance round him with mild aston
ishment that so many children and
grandchildren really belonged to him.
For six generations there had been
Marriots at the Grange, eldest son
regularly succeeding eldest son. 1t
was the proudest boast of each in his
turn that the land had never decreased
by one acre; that no mortgage had
been raised upon it; and that none Of
the Marriots-man and woman-had
ever even remotely brought dishonor
on the name.
One August the annual gathering
was not to be so numerous as usual.
The children of one of the married
daughters were i'll with scarlet fever;
one of the unmarried sons had gone to
sea.
So when Ursula Marriott, who had
been at school in France by way of
finishing her education, wrote for per-
mission to bring friend home with
her, it was decided that there would
be room to put at the disposal of
this young lady
A kindly letter of invitation was ae-
cordingly written by Mrs. Marriott to
Miss Winifred Warre, and enclosed in
that which told Ursula that her school
comrade would be made very welcome
at the Grange.
81 am sure you will all be charmed
with Winnie" the girl had written.
She was right; the Marriots we're all
delighted with their guest as soon as
she stepped inside the grand old en-
trance hall.
She was tall, lovely creature, older
certainly by year or two than Ursula,
who was just seventeen. She was
dressed in sober brown, with pink
knot of ribbon at the throat; and the
rose tint was in her cheek, and the
brown eyes matched by the coils of her
abundant hair.
Miss Warre was quite at her ease
among all these strangers; she laughed
and talked over the rough passage,
and over the little incidents of the
railway journey from Dover.
1t was impossible to be formal, with
such girl as this. She was winnie"
even that first evening with the Mar
riots. miss Winnie" with the ad-
miring servants, who waited on her
assiduously.
After quarter of an hour passed
over a merry afternoon tea, the guest
was taken to the pretty room prepared
for her, and the general verdict given
in her absence was not only favorable,
but Aattering.
Dinner time at the Grange was al
ways six o'clock, summer and winter
an unfashionably early hour, but Mr.
Marriott liked it. He said it left a
pleasantly long evening, during which
his sons and daughters read, sarg,
played duets, or whatever else they
saw fit to do, in the large drawing
room. Their parents usually retired
to ''the little drawing-room, which
was separated from the other only by
velvet curtains of moss green.
From the first evening Winnie
Warre became as a queen among the
younger party. And sometimes, when
by knowing her better they grew more
fond of her, Mr.. and Mrs. Marriott
would ask her TO sit with them for a
half hour in ''the sanctum," as their
children called it.
The girls parents were dead, and
she was quite without near relatives,
or indeed any relatives at all. She
possessed a guardian whom she had
only seen twice in her life, and who
did not interest himself in her nor
care to introduce her TO his family.
He advised, even after she came OF
&c, that she should make her home
81 a ''lady boarder" in the foreign
school where she had been educated
from quite little child.
Louis Marriott, the only grown-uI
unmarried son. fell deeply in love with
this lively, charming friend of his sister
Ursula.
But neither his father nor his
mother liked the idea of such mar
riage. They wanted for Louis the
daughter of thoroughly Englisl
home; some one whose family wal
we'll known TO him.
'You have not engaged yourself?'
said Mrs. Marriott anxiously, whel
her son made his little confession 0
love for pretty Winnie Warre.
81 have not said word; nor hinte,
to her what l feel for her, exclaime,