The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1904-12-07
XIV.
A BlueStockinG.

The time Of roses is gone by, the
green and fowery year turned russell.
Crimson heaps of apples in every
orchard betoken that cider making is
at hand. The cornfelds are bare; the
latest harvest of vraic is dried and
stacked. AS you pass along the cottage
gardens no longer greet you with home
" sweets of lavender or Of gillyfower;
their borders are gay with autumn's
scentless blooms, with hollyhocks,
dahlias and chrysanthemums. Sum-
mer has got it's death warrant, yet Qike
some human hearts, carries a brave
front to the last; so brave that but for
the shortening days, the songless
hedgerows, you might half believe that
the pulses Of spring were a-beat, the
vanished delights Of May. and mid
summer still to come.
It is a mellow October afternoon,
and Fief-de-la-Reine once more lies
bathed in sunshine; the lichened walls
Of the old farm and outbuildings, the
/ yellowing gardens. the pearly sky, all
blending in q single note Of color, ex-
uuisite as transient. Among the flow
er pots, trinity kept as in June, the bees
hum, ignorant of their doom. Golden
pumpkins, in rows, are laid to ripen
on the dairy roof. Herbs and lentils
for winter use lie outspread on linen
| sheets before the entrance of the house
place. Little Paul's laughter rings
merrily on the still air from the Or
| chard, where he and Aunt Hosie are
busy over the last gathering Of med
lars and October pears. Through the
| open kitchen windows may be heard,
| as of old, the warblings Of Margot-
Margot, who is to be married at Christ
mas-the tale of spoons and house
linen completed, and whose fancy
with legitimate lightness turns to
thoughts and songs of love
Belle diguece,
Belle diguedaine,
Belle diguidon,
Dondon, Dondon.
"Quite an Arcadian scene" remarks
a voice, curiously attuned and softened
since we heard it last, as a carriage
pulls up before the wicket gate Of Fief-
de-la-Reine, the wicket gate at which
| Severne and Mrs. Chester so often used
to linger ere they parted. IF ever we
do give up this wicked world, Sir John,
I shall assuredly come to Quernec to
seek our hermitage. Now for Daphne's
surprise-if she has neither emigrated
nor married the village curate in the
interval! Daphne-genus moaogynia,
! class ortundria. How good it il to feel
that one need never call anything by
it's Latin name again"
And in another minute Cleme2tina,
her face brighter than the October sun
shine that riots on it, is walking up the
path, full in view Of the parlor win
dows, Sir John Severne at her side.
Her voice, I said, has become at
tuned. Her smile is neart-whole. Glenn
ent1na's very step seems to have grown
lighter, more youthful, since the even
ing when last she visited Fief-de-la-
Refine. The newness p%erceptible in
every detail of her attire would suffice
to stamp her as q bride, in feminine
eyes, even were her soft hand, with its
shining wedding rirg, not ungloved.
And feminine eyes are watching her,
eyes within whose clear depths tears
Of exceeding bitterness are hardly
kept from overlooking!
U--- 49, J ----1c
against this hour, the cruel, inevitable
hour of meeting Severne and his wife:
yet, now that it has abruptly come
upon her. the fierceness Of the ordeal
seems beyond her strength to bear.
During the three past months she has,
in some measure, been kept up by the
remembrance of her self-sacriice. In
the hour of passionate temptation.