The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1904-08-24

ac~ ters, its windows case
mented and lozenged after the fash
ion Of 1850, the date that, with two
hearts entwined, figures in rCdely cut
characters above the central porch
way.
Overhead are balmiest summer airs,
a sky with more blue in it than you
will see during a dozen ordinary Ing
Esh Junes, and roses.
Roses around the windows, above
the door, along the eaves-roses every
where.
The penetrating odor Of newly
burned ~"vraic' strikes the sense, over
poweping even the luscious smelling
garden lilies, the pinks, gillyfowers
and brown lavender that stock the
trim-kept borders. You may hear the
crawl of the tide upon the sands; you
may hear, if you listen long enough,
the following owe song, chanted forth
from some interior region Of the house,
in q monotonous peasant voice-a voice
possessing about as much pretention
to cadence or expression as does tie
wild refrain itself to meaning:
Belle diguedi
Belle d~iguedaine,
Belle diguedon,
Dondon-dondon!
Other sound or sign of human exist
ence is there none, and, indeed, the
singers voice before long grows silent.
Hay cutting is at its height today,
and Margot, the solitary woman SER
want Of Fief-de-la-Reine. IS hurrylng
through her kitchen work to join the
men and maidens in the field. The
house dog takes his afternoon slesta
on the porch. Floods of sunshine
solid, amber, Cupid-like, give to the
scene 1 know not what dreamy flavor
Of Mariana in the South. Almost you
might expect to hear the sharp cry Oh
the cicala, almost believe that yonder
sweep Of Quivering sapphire were the
Mediterranean or Adriatic, not the pro-
sale strip of British sea that separates
Cherbourg from the Channel islands.
"And this is all! For this we are
born, weep a little, and die" So muses.
Daphne Chester as she looks out at
the world, her last pat of butter print
ed, from the alder-shaped windows of
the cool, sweet dairy. "Haymaking
this month, harvest the next. and then
the second crop of hay; apple picking
cider making, turnips, mangels, ploW-
ing for the corn, potato planting, po-
tato digging, back to hay again! If one
were only as old as Aunt Hosie! IL
one could only wake some blessed
morning and find that n had done
everything-done thirty or forty more
hay harvests and cider makings and
potato diggings, say! If life were a
little less long, or a little more varie-
gated. Why for tw~enty-four hours to
pass without q tide, for Margot to
sing a newer love song than 'Dlgue-
don'-nay, even for a single market
day, to print the butter with another
name than Fief-de-la-Reine would be
something's
"Mamseyr' shrieks out a piping
treble from the direction Of the flower
garden. "viens, p'tite Maman, irte-
Paulie taught him, fast"
Daphne leans forth her face quickly
through the dairy window and beholds
her small son Paul prone in the mid
die Of a centre border. his golden head
scorching in the sum-, his straw nat
crushed to the earth beneath both
brown. dimpled fsts-alas! and n of
the finest dove pinks in the garden
Aunt Hosie's special care and glory
crushed along with it!
"lAh, Paulie, wicked boy that you
are" cries Mrs. Chester, sternly-if
the most excellent voice ever bestowed
on woman could by possibility be stern,
above all when it addresses the child.
Another pink ~broken-that make
three of Aunt Fosie's best since din
ner-and your hat torn to ribbons. 4
new hat last Whitsuntide! Wait till
I come out! This time I shall punish
you in good earnest, sir"
And, q moment later, behold her fly
ing forth through the porch, then down
the garden path, her white arms bare,
her dainty apron hung as an improved
sunshaGe over her head, to administer
condign Judgment and %retribution upon
her son.
Daphne is a fair, slenderly built girl
of two-and-twenty, graceful after the
manner that out-of-door living and un-
consciousness of effect are apt to beget,
and with hair Of as FURNISHED q blonde
as the curls of little Paul. Her COM
pleXion boasts the pink Of a May morn
ing, a pair Of limpid hazel eyes give to
her countenance somewhat Of the grace
of C~orreggio's Virgin Mother. So much
for the surface coloring, the outward
form. What is the hidden, the moral
want of Mrs. Chester's face? For that
this wants exists a stranger can scarce
be in her company q minute without
discerning. No flaw is there Of feat
ure; the profile is clear; the serious lips
close we'll above a set Of white and
even teeth.
'Notre pauvre demoiselle q Ia Ma
ladie sans Maladie," say the country
people of the district, hitting the nail
straight home. "Notre demoiselle grew
old before she was young. Her &C
count with the world is Closed"
Here is the solution: LA Maladie
sans Maladie."
Dissect the young face curiously and
you will find that what it lacks is eX-
pectation. The blank, acquiescent look
that life plows into faces of forty and
fifty, and that we label resignation or
despair, according to creedS. tWen-
ty-two years have sufiiced. without q