Williston graphic. (Williston, Williams County, N.D.) 1895-1919, 1900-03-01
The Yellow Salon
BY Edgar Temple Field.
IT WAS a very elegant apartment,


IT WAS very elegant apartment,
large, solemn and stately. 10 be
sure, the yellow satin 'hangings were
family faded in streaks, like the golden
tresses of a beauty past her prime, and
the ornate gliding had lost some of it's
rich bloom and luster, like a young
girls cheek when time has touched it.
There had been time when the yell
low salon was filled every night with
the fashion and wit of Paris, and great
affairs had been settled there-the fate
of Kingdoms and the rewards and pun
ishment of famous men.
&. But that was long ago, and dull and
tuneventful enough the present seemed
by contrast, though it boosted its oc-
casional exciting episodes, as when but
few short summers since the young
count, just home from Africa, had
brought her pretty Cousin Alike in
there and declared his love for her in
words as fiery as the skies beneath
which he had been fighting for the
honor of France.
She was lovely girl, was Alixe-tall
and slim and graceful, with dreamy
dark eyes, and hair as yellow as the
satin hangings of the salon whose fas-
tidious occupants had always liked her,
by the way, ever since she first came
from the convent poor, penniless
l;441o ~ ri 10 ,,-:%b
grand-aunt, the old countess.
They approved of her thoroughly;
her grace and sweetness and her aris-
tocratic carriage all marked her unmis-
takably as belonging to the old nobil-
ity, they told each other, and when
the little love affair whose beginnings
they had all watched and commented on
with so much interest, finally cnl.
minated in the counts avowal in their
very presence, their delight knew no
bounds.
\ With what loving care had the drap-
cries of the windowed recess drawn
close about the youthful pair lest some
less affec iionate eye than theirs should
see their innocent raptures. The great
gilt mirror had held their graceful
forms in shadowy embrace, the :en-
derness and pride of which they little
suspected. and when the lovers finally
seated themselves, locked III each 9TH
er's arms, on a slender Louis Quatorze
sofa, that impressionable piece of fur
niture had groaned SO LOUD from sym
pathy as to brighten them away into
the garden, much to the disgust OF the
other int. ested spectators.
Something Lad happened day or
two after this, they never knew Just
what, though, of course, they had all
had guess at it. But whatever it was,
the consequences were serious enough.
The youn~ count had gone off to Amer
lea in a hurry; the old countess, his
grandmother, had had a severe illness
from which she had not even We: en-
tirely recovered, and during the years
that had e.lsued the great room had
been wrapped in gloom and silence
through which pretty Alike wandered
sadly like graceful, girlsh ghost.
They were talking about it for the
thousandth time one sunny spring
morning when an astonishing thing oc-
Cured so unprecedented
they wouldn't have been more surprised:
if the earth had opened and swallowed
them up.
The yellow salon was the scene of an
invasion! Not of armed warriors-that
would not have been so astounding. for
such thing had happened more than
once in the history of the ancient apart
ment-but an invasion OF servants, at
least dozen of them, with buckets and
brooms and mops and polishers, and
: they gave the yellow salon such scrub
bling and securing as it had never known
before.
The visitation lasted all day long,
and it was quite dark when all was over
and the great room was left once more
to it's aristocratic repose.
"Whew!" exclaimed fat sofa cush-
ion, putting out its shining satin cheek
at the recollection. 'Pll not forget that
beating Jacques gave me in hurry.
I'd like to give it back to him, the
blast!"
pooh, you couldn't hurt a fly, you're
SO soft-hearted," said a table, whose
slender legs with difficulty supported
shining marble slab. "But | tell you
the rubbing l got went against the
grain! And the more 1 cried out I'M
der their hard fingers the harder they
rubbed"
''It's mercy I've got whole stick
left" cried dainty fan painted by
Boucher. 'They handle fan as if it
was hoe, those peasants
eff we only knew what it was all
about" complained the old grand pi-
ano, in its faint, ghostly treble.
What! didn't you find out?' said
the mirror. "How some people can
take in so little of what goes on before
them is more than can understand"
'.Oh. spare me your reflections cried