The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1904-06-17
ElVira and Her
Love Letters.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
BY CLAUDE ASKEW.
BY CLAUDE ASKEW.

e LVIRA lived in a sleepy little New
l. England village, and was it's rec
ognized beauty. Not that the quiet,
staid New Englanders would ever have
admitted openly their pride in Elvira-
that would have been impossible to
their grim tenets of faith; but they
took the same pleasure in the girl as
they did over the bright flowers in
their gardens, glorious Gala lilies,
light wavy princes feather, sweet
scented honeysuckle, Towering candy
tuft. Elvira was very pretty, so slight
that by the side of more heavily built
girls she looked like wild flower and
quite as ethereal; blue-eyed and with
cloud of fair flaxen hair that would
fall in soft drifts round the sweet oval
face. She lived with an old unmarried
aunt in house close to the road, a
thick hedge of evergreens surrounding
it and fencing of the garden. The
house belonged to the aunt, also a
small sum in the bank, on the interest
of which they lived in fair comfort.
Elvira wanted to earn her own living.
Once she had persuaded Anne Hardy,
the village dressmaker, to take her as
an apprentice, but old Clarissa Lana
had descended with flaming cheeks on
the busy little woman.
II just guess, Mis- Hardy" she cried,
that we amt 80 hard put to it that
my own brothers child goes out to
work. 1t was real kind of you to take
her-but-Elvira, you just put on your
bonnet and come home this minute"
Old Clarissa worked herself to the
bone for Elvira. She hated to see the
girl doing rough work and selling her
delicate, pretty fingers. In the same
way Elvira was debarred from working
in the garden.
Doh you go for to brown your
face like them wild Mellor girls, Ell
vira," was Clarissa's constant cry if
she saw her niece digging in the gar
den-"go right in at once; l guess the
sun won't hurt me-"
To see Clarissa at her happiest mo-
ment was to see her on Sundays, walk
ing up the aisle of the meeting house
behind her niece, conscious of the ad-
miration given involuntarily to pretty
Elvira by even the strictest members
present, watching every fold of the
white dress and futter of the ribbons,
her eyes dwelling lovingly on the pale
yellow hair and slender, graceful form.
Clarissa was exalted by her great and
passionate love out of a chill winter
spinsterhood into warm and rich ma
turity.
She loved to dress Elvira in soft
girlish muslins and to tie her straw
hat with fine silk ribbons. For her.
self a rusty black alpaca and an old
faded bonnet, but Elvira must always
go fresh and dainty. The girl re-
belled, with flushing, sensitive face
and weak tears-she hated to 20 fine
while old Clarissa wore her ugly cot
tons to rags, but her protest was un-
needed by the strong, masterful old
woman.
Elvira was allowed no sweetheart.
Other girls could walk home from
meeting with their beaus, and sit with
them at winter time in a lamp-lit par
lor, but Clarissa trudged alongside Ell
vira like some old duenna, and the
young men of the village could only
gaze at the delicate, flowerlike girl,
who was not for them and their kind.
gaze with half reluctant admiration,
also dim perception that here was
material too fine.
But the lover came-came in the
person of one Gilman Holmes, a young
New York pressman, who was spend
ing his brief holiday in search of
copy Chance or fate took him to
Elvira's village. He came to study
types, he remained to study-love.
An alert, bright-eyed man of 30, pre-
else in dress. slim in figure, Gilman
spoke with a sharp crispness pleasant
in contrast to the slow New England
voices. Compared with the village
young men he was as the racer to the
willing cart horse, trimming over with
nervous vitality, creature of high
pressure.
He had taken rooms with Deacon
Elvin, but the good man saw little of
his boarder, for Gilman took the viii
lage by storm, and every door was
open to him. He went about with his
notebook, his keen eye ever ready to
seize a likely picture, his fingers itch
ing to transfer to paper the homely
speech of his rustic entertainers, jour-
nalist first-Gilman Holmes afterward
Clarissa, not to be outdone in hos
pitality, wrote prim, formal note in
viting the young man to tea, an invi-
tation which he accepted with alacrity,
for rumor had already reached him of
Elvira and her beauty.
1t was with peculiar care that
Clarissa laid out her tea on that occa-
sion. Generally the meals were spar
ing, for her income was a very small
one, but this time her tea was lavish.
There was excellent cup-cake for one
thing, wafer slices of bread and butter,
two glass dishes flied with preserve