The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1904-04-28
EIVira and Her
Love Letters.
Observation-Disclosures
ny 2IIUOE ASKEW
BY CLAUDE ASKEW.

&" iIu6iouo SllIo6S, ouo " 40 40 wv
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 a wild flower and
quite as ethereal; blue-eyed and with
a cloud of fair fiaxen hair that would
fall in soft drifts round the sweet oval
face She lived with an old unmarried
aunt in a house close to the road, a
thick hedge of evergreens surrounding
it and fencing off 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 Lane
had descended with flaming cheeks on
the busy little woman.
81 just guess. Mis- Hardy" she cried,
that we amt so 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"
To ha
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.
Don't you go for to brown your
face like them wild Mellor girls, Ell
vira,' was Ciarissa's constant cry if
she saw her niece digging in the gar
den-"go right in at once; guess the
sun won't hurt me-"
To see Clarissa at her happiest mo-
ment was to see her on Sundays, walk
ing mp the aisle of the meeting house
behind her niece, conscious of the adj
miration given involuntarily to pretty
Elvira by even the strictest members
present, watching every fold of the
white dress and fiutter 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 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 go fine
while old Clarissa wore her ugly cot
tons to rags, but her protest was I'M
needed by the strong, masterful old
woman.
ElEira was allowed no sweetheart
Other girls could walk home from
meeting with their beaus, and sit with
them at winter time in lamp-lit par
lor, but Clarissa trudged alongside Ell
vira like some old duenna, and the
young men of the village could only
SAFE 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 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, brimming 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 vii
lage by storm, and every door was
open to him. He went about with his
notebook, his keen eye ever ready to
Seize d likely picture, his fingers ltCn-
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. .s
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 very small
one, but this time her tea was lavish.
There was excellent cup-cake for one
I thing. wafer slices of bread and butter,
tive glass dishes flied with preserve
and plate of red currants from the
garden. Clarissa put out her mothers
wedding china, pale, apple-green tea
cups and plates, and then, to crown
all, she picked a great bunch of flow
ers and placed them in vase in the
center of the table.
Elvira looked on with large, wide
open eyes. Her lips framed O ques-