The Opelousas courier., 1899-08-26

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woman's hand had planned and care
for it. But no woman had anythin
to do with the rectofy. The Rev
Alr. Smiles only servant was a doc
4ering old man; the rector prepare
Els own meals, except when he wa
4vited to tea by some old lady VIII
Pitied his lonely, indigestion-breedin
existence.
Not that the Rev. Mr.. Smiles was
woman hater, but Mr.. Smiles wa
! fery high church indeed. Unfortu
! hately, st. James and the parish an,
the people were very poor. The goo'
people liked the Rev. Mr.. Smiles an
tried to follow his suggestions upol
high church usages. But there ar,
people, you know, whom you couldn'
make high church with a jackscrew
The commandments of st. James wer'
mostly farmers and small tradesmen
The rector felt that the clergy, to b.
able to give their whole time anG
thought to their work, should liv,
lives of ~celihary. He had felt at time!
a strong d"a.,lug toward some e%cclesi'
astical o:Go: in which such vows would
be necessary. Then he would wear
some outward sign of his vows, and
the young women of his parish woull
not fall in love with him. The recto,
was young and good looking; he haG
been in his present %pastorate SIX
months, and he had already had OIL
experience.
The young rector lived with his
books, occasionally taking a little rec.
reation in the garden. The roses dis.
appeared, the leaves fell and left the
clinging vines bare, and the snow GOV
cred the prim little beds in the r~ectory
garden. Thus a year of his passionate
closed, and the spring drew near.
The Rev. Wetherby Smiles, from
his study window. could look across
his garden plot and see the brown
earth warming in the spring sunshine
and the trees and bushes slowly burst
ing into leaf. Nature is always most
attractive in the spring, and nature in
4 thousand ways, with bud and leaf
and warming earth and white-fecked
sky and sweet air, wooed him from
his books.
He looked across his garden, I.say.
And across the garden, beyond the
low hodge, was another garden, which
in summer was full of color. He had
noticed the brilliant-hued beds the
year before, but now the only bit of
color vas a pale-blue morning robe
that fitted about the inclosure.
To tell the truth, the rector had
seldom noticed that morning gown or
the little woman inside it before. But
pleased his fancy now to look across
the hedge and watch his neighbor.
He recalled that his old major-domo
had told him the cottage next the par
q occupied by O widowed
lady-a lonely creature who had taken
up her abode there but shortly before
the Rev. Mr.. Smiles was settled over
st. James. He remembered the little
figure in black in M Of the sidepews,
out to him by the clerk as
Scorritch," and probably had
not given her q thought or a glance
However, be sew so much of the
oale-blue gown that first warm week
spring that he looked for the little
in her pew tho next Sabbath.
She had laid aside her weeds and was
lressed in some soft, clinging, fawn-
material that made her look
ike a very demure little moth. And
he had the sweetest face in the world
AS least, the sweetest face in the
Rev. Wetherby Smiles world.
On Monday morning the clerical
black appeared in the rectory garden
,lmost as soon al the pretty morning
ODE appeared over the hedge. The
little face dimpled and smiled
lnder its garden hat at the rector's
pproach, and the widow nodded
rightly.
"You are early at your gardening
spring, Mrs. Scorritch," he said.
eyes; but it is SC warm" she re-
lied, in defense. II am expecting
~ crocuses to appear any day now"
'I'm afraid we shall see some frost
Mrs. Scorritch," said the rector.
Snow, don't talk that way, I beg!"
ried the little woman, clasping her
ands, inclosed in long-wristed and
articularly well-itting gauntlets.
Just suppose my crocuses should
ONE up and be FROST bitten! Oh, the
bought is too awful" rs
II sincerely hope you will not be
isappointed, but this climate is un-
After that the young rector often
ound it quite necessary for his
ealth to work in his garden while the
lue gown (fitting like a butterfly from
ose tree to vine and from vine to
edgerow) was in evidence in the
eighboring yard. Really, after por-
lg over musty theological tones all
inter a man must get some freshness
, his soul and new blood in his
cart.
The gardening went on apace, and the
'eacherous warm weather continued.
[any were the conferences held across
1e hedge regarding the proper prun-
lg Of rose trees, the planting of hardy
eeds and the preparation Of the beds
earth. The rector had never sus-
ected there was SO much detail to the
usiness of gardening.
One morning, just after a warm
light rain, the Rev. Mr.. Smiles was
allied to the hedge by a little cry
ON his ne;ghbor.
"They are coming!" she cSied, in
"See! here is the dearest
tile blade Of green pushing up
trough the mold-andtl there is another
and annfhari Int lont- - a-m |,