The Morris County chronicle. [volume] (Morristown, N.J.) 1877-1915, 1904-08-02

Samaf1tan'S. In seasons OF Sn1pWrecK
or of illness, when sons are lost al
sea, when little children are left faith
erless-in every perennial sorrow Of
our common lot, Aunt Hosie's is the
one needed presence, hers the best
consolation. Not sick person but
rates her nursing powers higher than
the Doctors science higher, it may be
sometimes feared, than the ghostly
ministrations of parson or Of priest.
Not dying pillow that her hand can
not smooth OF group of mourners
with whom her tearsin these she is
rich--do not flow in sympathy.
! When Miss Theodore visits among
her neighbors, it is Va stiff, official
manner, with appropriate chapter and
verse, satisfactorily bringing back be-
fore her consciousness the day when
her lamented papa commanded forts
and garrisons and it was a duty for
his daughter to give moral succor to
such wives and children of soldiers as
were on the regulation. To enlarge
before suffering sinners upon the JUS
tice of Providence and the retributive
nature Of their own pains, is, with the
distribution of wrath dealing tracts,
! Theodora's honest conception Of doing
| good. And as her spiritual encourage
ments are afforded either in English, of
which the Quernac fishing people I'M
derstand little, or in hating, grammar
learnt, good French" of which they
understood nothing at all, it can scarce
/ f,e ~, 4tn,. .f 1uor,dnr fla+ 4hn moor. no.
| gard her visits like wet harvests Of in
| fructuous springs, as some mysterious
| c-price upon the part Of Heaven, and
| submit to rather than solicit their con-
| tinuance.
Aunt Hosie talks the island patois--
the French of Froissart you will hear
a Jerseyman call it-with volubility; a
burr Of good North Country accent
clinging to her tongue, and rendering
the speech less musical than character
istic. She spends her life out Of doors;
owning, and, with the help Of Margot
and Margot's lover, farming an estate
of, / am ashamed to say how few
acres; and is sun-tanned and wind
dried as bit Of autumn's vraic.
| The smile sounds un1attering, but at
this seabound, isolated point Of exis-
tence one is SO surrounded by vraic
that it interpenetrates the thoughts
unawares; vraic strews the shores,
gardens, fields, sends its dense white
smoke through every cottage chimney,
now fresh, now dried. now in ashes,
fills the air of the whole district with
its searching odor.
A clean cotton gown in summer, a
serge one in winter, a sun-bonnet
through every season Of the year.
Such is Aunt Hosie's dress. She weeds.
hoes, works in the hay field, at the
vraic harvest, the cider press; and
with it all remains lady, an extraor-
dinarily contented one!
The two elder sisters, after quar-
ter of a century spent at Fief-de-Ia-
Refine, still look back on Bath, Brigh-
ton and Cheltenham with sigh Miss
Theodore, notably, who keeps up the
social credit of the house, and on oc-
casion dimes at the houses Of the abor-
iginal gentility, gets periodical fits of
low spirits, uncertain temper and con-
comitant doctors visits.
From all these Affections Aunt Hosie
is free. Her manner is trifie abrupt,
like the sea wind, that asks no leave
before it salutes your cheek; her
speech wholesomely bitter. like the
simples culled from her own old-fash-
Toned herb garden; and for her
face"
1.-THE bloom Of ugliness is past" she
will tell you, frankly. II am better
looking woman now than l was at
twenty-five, and mean to be beauty
yet before / die"
And, little though she suspects it,
her homely features do possess a
charm, a loneliness such as many
washed-out cheeks and overperfect
profiles of younger generation can
not boast.
"As wine savors of the cask wherein
it is kept" wrote quaint author, "as
wine savors Of the cask wherein it is
kept so the soul receives tincture
from the body through which it
works."
The conceit returns ever to my mind
when / think of the brave, weather
freshened old face of Henrietta Van
sittart.
To-day seems fated to be one of
wild excitement, Aunt Hosie." says
Daphne, just as the two arrive within
sight OF Fief-de-la- Refine. Jean Marie
and Margot have discovered. after five
years waiting, that they have saved