Waterbury evening Democrat., 1903-05-05


 him that they were not ordinary fre- quenters of the hop harvest, and then it flashed into his mind that they were the young ladies who had passed Joe Becraft and himself the evening before. As they advanced he had an excellent view of them, for he was facing in the direction from which they were approaching. The one whose beauty he and Be- craft had remarked upon was tall and slight, and carried herself with a singular grace and charm. The great hat which shaded her features and was tied beneath her chin showed her countenance as though in frame-the delicately arched brows, the appealing eyes, the re- fined and sensitive mouth. Her skin was unnaturally pale, as though ther evidences of ill-health, laughing and chatting with the one who ac- companied her in an animated way. The other girl-Rossiter judged that both might be 24 or 25-was much shorter and bumper than her com panion. There were roses in her checks, and while with some she would hardly have passed as pretty, there was about her wholesome at- tractiveness.
 Rossiter was tempted to turn and watch them, but restrained himself from doing so. He chanced to look towards the Becraft box and caught Joe's eye. That young man gave little emphatic nod of his head which told its story of admiration.
 1T shall have to threaten to re-, port to his sweetheart" thought Rossiter.
 What can they be doing in the hop-yard ?'' he mused.
 His unspoken query was answered an instant later by the carpenters wife, who said to her husband: That's Miss Merton, the one with the red cheeks, and the others Miss Densmore, a cousin of the Mer- tons from Illica, who's come out to pick for her health. heard Mrs. Merton tell some one so last night.'' During most of the afternoon the face of Miss Merton's cousin was be" fore Rossiter, although he did not actually see her again till towards the time for the picking to cease, when she and Miss Merton passed on their way to the house. It was l her eyes especially that haunted him | the searching tenderness in them. | That he should dwell upon her thus was quite as ridiculous, he confessed 1 to himself, as was Becraft's display l of susceptibility. Rossiter had long considered women, at least those of | the class with which he had once associated, as having gone out of his life forever. Indeed, from the time, year and half before he had cut l loose from his kin and all social ties, when, on learning that his fortune had vanished, the girl to whom he had given his heart hadThrown him over. he had regarded the sex from an iso- lated standpoint. The love of beauty I in it's many forms which had been l born in him, and which no series of experiences could eradicate, had 1 often, in his yagabondage, riyeted his attention upon a lovely woman, but l he had always considered her from the artists position. That, after all this time, face should so take hold upon him struck him with g sense of the preposterous, he who had sunk to the level of the veriest dregs of humanity-a common tramp He was inclined to shout aloud with mirth.
 ] Two days before he would have sworn that such thing was beyond the bounds of possibility, but ever in the life of a vagrant two days may work strange things. The mo ment his feet touched the ground al Illica the change began, and Rossiter regarding himself impersonally, be gan to wonder if he were actually the same person who slowed him self in the freight car at Clevalo not great many hours previous. Some thing that he could not analyze wa; crytalizing within him. Another more familiar with the workings o: the brain towards that which is reso lute, fixed, and definite, might have recognized it and called it purpose. j As Mrs. Becraft desired an errant done in Hintonville, after supper Jo, got ride into the village, with ont
 of the hired men who was going fo 
 the evening mail. Rossiter, left t' himself, wandered down into tn great orchard below the small clos'
 where the mems sleeping quarter
 were. A wagon track led througl
 it, and he followed this till h. reached meadow that dipped gentl..
 to dense strip of woodland. Ia away in the west the streamers o the sunset laced the sky. Leaning against the fence rails, he watches the splendor fade, filled with nor
 uplifting sense of spirit than he hal , felt in many day.
 With the shutting down of dusl ne walked back towards the house As he drew abreast of the hop-kill
 he saw two men seated in the door way whom he made to be MT. Merton and Jack Parmelee.
 "We've done very we'll for the frs day,' Parmelee was saying. "Onl
 had one piece O bad luck"
 "What's that?" inquired Merton. {