Morris tribune. [volume] (Morris, Minn.) 1880-2000, 1903-10-24
MISS SMITH

| Of course it was very wrong O.
her, for we all know that you should
not talk to gentlemen who have moi
been introduced to you. But when
| you are sweet and twenty and are
| staying at a country house all alone
| and are rather bored and a hand
some young man comes to your res
cue in a wood when your poor little
dog has caught it's foot in cruel
trap how can you possibly pass him
by the very next day as if he were
a stranger? And he was SO kind to
the dog! He bound up its poor lit
tie bleeding foot in his handkerchief
and carried it in his arms to the
lodge gate. Then he said:
''Do you often walk in the wood?Y
EShe was feeling too grateful to him
to resent hi5 i1spsrtinence, as she
mould have done, so she only said,
Sometimes" and thanked him
again with all her heart in her pref
Ity eyes. as r
He looked up to where, through
the trees, the big red house showed
it's twisted, old fashioned chimneys
and said:
'My name is Lavender. You are
Miss Verinder, l suppose?''
She looked at him quickly.
81 am Miss Verinder's humble
companion. Ny name is Smith"
owe are comrades in servitude,"
The said. II am Lord Halibut's Sec
retagy. You walk in the woods
sometimes. Then it isn't goodby.
Do they let you come out often ?"
81 am my own mistress at pres
ent," she said. "a lot of people will
be coming down on the 25th for the
heiress' coming of age. They give
grand entertainment to the ten,
ants. Lord Halibut is to be there.
What is he like ?"
"Oh," said the young man indif-
ferently, she's not bad sort of fell
low. There's some, talk of their
families wishing him to marry the
beiress. The estates go very well
together. But he's never even seen
her. He's been so much abroad,
you know"
II don't believe the, heiress will
have him." the girl said sharply and
turned away with her poor little dog
in her arms. ..,. asa,
Now, it is quite clear that she
ought not to have walked in the
wood, at least not so soon as the
next day, or if she walked there the
next day she ought not to have
chosen the very hour when poor
Troll had met with his misfortune.
But to the bored much may be par
doned, and, as for Lord Halibut's
secretary, he had a right, one may
suppose, to amuse himself. And
that meeting was not the last. How ,
could it have been? And when you
meet a person every day without
chaperons or other tiresome people
you soon make friends. Before the
week was out Mr.. Lavender had
heard how Miss Smith was left an
orphan and had to earn her living,
and she had learned that Mr.. Law
ender's part in life must always be !
that of subordinate.
els she kind to you?" he asked |
one evening as they sat on messed
tree trunk and watched the red sun
set across the valley where the corn /
grew.
ooh, yes, she's kind enough the
girl said. CAT least | am sure she
means to be-"
''She's revoltingly clever, ! hear,
Beat the senior wrangler at Cam
bridge or something
"She did, but that's not Grim
inal, and Lord Halibut is at least
her partner in iniquity. He took a
first class in greats, didn't he? Oh,
how / do hate clever men!"
"You have my sympathy. / abb
hor clever women p
They both laughed. And the days
went on, and July melted into Au-,
gust, and August grew in grace, till
the time came near for the coming
of age of Miss Verinder, and if DUR
ing these days there had been hard
pressure SO slight as not to be worth
or a look so nearly tender
as to make mans heart beat high
with hope, if he had treasured the
forgetmenots she gathered by the
pond and pressed them in
the volume of Browning from which
ne had read to her in the woods, and
If she kept certain handkerchief
L = L l.