The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1899-02-22

lo0sened her braided hRlr, sne Heo on
her pink garden-hat and she took her
rush basket and scissors to the rose
hedges. A musk-rose, pink and mossy,
looked at her, and she gathered 1t and
placed it in her girdle. Then she heard
footsteps-voices-a low laugh-a
merry strain of song:
"Willie Fosters game to sea,
Siller buckles at his knee,
He'll come back and marry me,
Bonnie Willie Foster"'
She instantly OWNED the truth.
Jessy was coming through the garden
and some one was with Jessy. She
knew who it was. All fear was gone;
hope and love made glad her heart,
made bright her eyes, made rosy her
cheeks, dimpled her mouth with
smiles, illumined her face with that
ultra-terrestrial charm which belongs
to beauty transfgured by the heart,
not by the intellect.
She stood motionless, erect, every
sense absorbed in listening. For one
moment she had an impulse to answer
Jessy's song, the next moment she
felt it would be an offense to destiny.
Love knew where she was waiting. If
Mowbray held her fate he, also; ought
to know. There was slight hesita-
tion, O cessation of human voices;
they were plucking flower, she could
see the bush tremble at it's loss; and
before she could breathe again Jessy
and Mowbray came into sight.
Her eyes went straight to her lover
and they drew him like magnet. In
q moment he was at her side. She
gave him her hand and he kissed it.
He spoke but one word, and it was
her name. But in that one word love
said everything. It was impossible
then that these two should ever go
back to the formalities that introduce
conventional love-making. It would
have been as absurd as to turn back
q scholar from the highest form to the
lowest. They, indeed, asked each
other some commonplace questions,
but they meant no more than the runs
and chords between a singers verses
mean. And Jessy was a good little
Christian. In this case she at once
resolved to do to Katherine precisely
what she would have liked Katherine
to do to her. She said "she could
not wait for them to exchange notes;
she had some important business with
Mrs. Brathous, and they could find
their way to the house and take their
leisure about it!''
Both watched her out of sight, and
then somehow the little basket fell
from Katherine's hands aud Mowbray
was clasping both of them in his own.
katherine, my beauty" he said,
softly, "you might have stepped out
of the folded leaves of the rose-blos-
SONS! Katherine, my beloved, say to
me one word of welcome"
Then she spoke, and the roses nod
ded with delight; and the small,
blithe wrens burst into q wild little
jubilate at her answer.
Mowbray needed only this slight
announcement. He>gave her no time
to qualify it. He wooed her as men
ought to woo-with All irresistible
will, with a passionate desire. And
love is magistrate in language: He
taught Mowbray words that unlocked
the maiden's heart; taught him words
that swayed her there among the
lonely rose-trees, as orators sway null
titudes in the market-place. They
we're often foolish words, with no
scholarly meaning, but they touched
her with a delicious intelligence.
They were often nothing but sweet,
impulsive, impetuous iteration, but
this iteration was as potent as the
quick, recurring blows of the hammer
on the anvil. If he said only "Dar-
ling" he said it twenty times, and
each time it came hotter from his
heart and went closer to hers.
Such wooing makes an ugly man
handsome; it makes handsome man
but little lower than an angel. Now
bray had that beauty which catches
and charms the eyes--a graceful form,
q winning manner, regular features,
and, what is much rarer, flesh of finest
texture; translucid in its paleness, so
much so that his brown, expressive
eyes were not more lambent than the
rest of his face. And Love trans.
figured him; he was even physically
divine, under the celestial emotion.
Swiftly went that wonderful hour
among the roses-that Gelectable, ex.
quisite hour that never comes to any
mortal but once. There were tears Of
rapture in their eyes, when, at last. they
turned out of the howery labyrinth,
pledged to each other forever! In
their bliss they were assailed by lit
tie of that weariness and melancholy
which oil mortals must experience who
dare the only earthly Joy which holds
the gift of Immortality. Katherine
fed to her room and fell upon her
knees and wept little and prayed a
little in those broken eiaculations
which are at once 80 childlike and so
acceptable to the Divinity.
. ITO BE CONTINUED.
-
A Princeton Problem.
MAN fhto