Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1900-09-24
Continued.

There SYPHILIS list'of accomplishments
ended. Of education in it's true sense
she had none. She lived the bright,
painless life of butterfly, and no one
ever said to her that the world was full
of sorrow and pain; no one ever told
her she had more to do than laugh
through the sunny hours; no one pre-
pared her for suffering, or taught her
lessons of stern endurance.
The squire would never hear of it.
LET the child be happy" he would
say; cher troubles will begin soon
enough"
And so, when the graver sister Would
have trained the impressionable, loving
nature he forbade it.
Many of Heavens fairest gifts had
fallen to her lot She was pure and in
nocent as dreaming child. Way
ward, it is true; yet her woman's
nature was reverential and earnest.
She was generous and beautiful scorn-
full and intolerant of all meanness;
resenting herself all wrong and oppres-
sion; detesting all lies and falsity;
never pardoning an act of deception.
It was a grand nature, capable of
great things, had it been properly
trained.
She knew she was beautiful, and re-
joiced in her own loneliness. She was
neither vain, coquettish, nor affected
Every one told her she was like Lady
Sybil Jocelyn, and she could see for
herself that no fairer face ever shone
we
she was named.
She always rode the best horses; and
Sybil Jocelyn, in her dark-blue habit
her coquettish little hat, with her
white plumes dropping over her golden
hair and sweet face, was pleasant
picture to gaze upon.
She did just as she liked in every
way save one. She would have enjoy
ed going to London, and mixing with
the great world. She would nave liked
more balls, more parties, more society,
but Squire Jocelyn would have none of
these things.
He guarded his treasure too jealous
ly, and that was why he came to lose
it, He would not allow his motherless
girl to leave the safe haven of their
own home. In vain Sybil urged that
other girls went to London, and were
presented at court, and SO had some
chance in the world; why could she not
do as others did?
But the squire answered very grave
~.
'"The court" he said, twas the purest
and grandest in Europe. He knew
that the gracious lady who headed it
was a model of pure and perfect
womanhood, peerless as wife, mother,
and queen; but he did not wish his
Sybil to mix with the gay world at all.
She was his bright, bonny bird, and
must content with her cage
His one great idea, the rock upon
which his hopes and her life were
centered, was the notion of keeping his
beautiful, dainty Sybil select. There
were few with whom he willingly saw
her associate; there were few, indeed,
whom the proud, loving father thought
good enough for his child. SO Sybil
grew up in the beautiful solitude of
Glynn, and the girls heart was I'M
stained, unspotted by the world-all
it's dark phases were unknown to her.
She had some vague idea that in some
remote places sin, suffering, shame
and sorrow were to be found. She had
some faint notion that all lives were
not like her own; that toll and labor,
poverty and privation fell to the lot of
Others.
She knew that some had to work
fO, 81, 10S1
watered by tears. She knew such
things as unkindness, violence, and
crime existed, but she never realized
these things until the time came when
her loving heart was tortured by bitter
words, and her white arms darkened
with heavy blows.
She was happy now, with her birds
and her flowers, dreaming, in the
shade Of the Glynn woods, of the
knight who was some day to ride by
and break the spell-dreaming amid the
summer flowers of thousand vague
and delicious hopes, all full Of love and
poetry.
Time and oft came trilling from her
lips sweet snatches of music and song.
The squire would bend his gray head to
listen to the clear, rich voice singing
gayly among the flowers
There had never been one shadow Of
care on her face; there had never been
a cloud in her sky When she reached
her sixteenth year, the squire declared
she had had enough of governesses
and masters, and from that time she
was free.
She must be down at breakfast-time
to make his tea; he would not take it
from other hands After breakfast
she must be ready to ride with him,
and then, until dinner-time she was
free. After dinner the squire was
never happy unless she was near him;
singing or talking in her gay, girlish
was.
No wonder that he hated all society,
for it would have robbed him of the
eyuoA+oc+ comma nj on man