The Morris County chronicle. [volume] (Morristown, N.J.) 1877-1915, 1906-03-13


to her to have been told that she was
playing fast and loose with Mr.. Fol
iett's heart all this time leading him
on to tcnderest hope by familiar tone or
gesture at one moment. sinking him
to despair by a sigh, look, q distant
reference to Afohun ard her buried
love for him at the next.
She was single-hearted and generous
to a degree quite beyond the average
Of her sex-an exceptional feminine
nature that would have felt real pain,
not f1attered, delicious triumph, at
knowing that good mans love was
being lavished upon her in vain. And
this very lack Of vanity. Joined to the
preoccupation of her own thoughts in
all things pertaining to love, made her
guilelessly play out part which Mon
sieur de Balzoa's Princess" herself
could not have rivaled.
The conclusion to one conversation,
the last, of many like to it, win show
upon what terms this man and woman
fast approaching middle age now stood
with regard to each other. Scene-the
little garden of James cottage; season
early summer; principal figures Jane
Grand, dressed in black, pale and list
less as usual training the roses IN the
the way they should 80 above the par
lor window; exactly opposite her, at the
distance of about three feet, the Vicar
of Chesterford.
And here stop to say-what I ought
to have said long ago-that Mr. FOL
let's appearance was not an uncomely
one He did not look his age Indeed,
at this moment there appeared very
slight difference between Jane and him
self, his spare. broad chested. loose
knit frame being of that order which
retains all the lightness and elasticity
of youth years after compact but
fleshy contemporaries have spread into
the rotundity of middle life
AS he stood now, with his arms fold
ed behind him-his accustomed attitude
and looking intently at Miss Grands
unconscious face-a stranger seeing
only his figure and dark, thick, close
cut hair, would have hesitated to call
him a man still on what is convention
ally termed the best side Of thirty.
Nor was his face old. Youth was, Of
course, gone from it, if by youth you
mean freshness and rounded outline
and vivid coloring; but these Qualifica-
lions, the first points in woman's
beauty, are by no means essential in
mans; and Mr. Follett's dark face,
with clear-cut salient features, and
deep-set iron-grey eyes was, / fancy,
handsomer now than it was a dozen
years before. His dress was always
oId-fashioned and the same; not very
priestly, and seldom in frst-rate condi-
ton, but suiting him in that indescrib-
able manner which Messrs. Stulz or
Buckmaster, do not always find it easy
to make their well-ut clothes assume
upon the wealthiest clients shoulders.
On the morning in question he had on
his head q wide-awake hat, which adj
mirably became his somewhat foreign
face, but which had already caused a
great deal Of mental disquietude in the
parish.
Merely to shelter his eyes from the
sum- My dear Miss Brown. all the
world knows wide-awakes are the sign.
the watehword, of the Broad Church
principles"
And as that dreadful heresy was
new to the minds Of Chesterford st.
Mary, its insignia or standard was
naturally regarded with the terror men
have for new and fell diseases by the
eyes of parochial orthodoxy.
do you think the yellow roses trail
as well as they did last year, Mr.. Fol
lett? / fancy all the flowers have some
thing wan and sickly about them this
summer. Look, this cloth-ofgold will
never be brought to hang as it used
to do around the window
Exceeding grace is the sole personal
charm that years cannot take from a
woman. AS Jane, with one white bare
wrist aloft.turned to glance across her
shoulder at the vicar her attitude
might almost have We'd with that inn
mortal one of her who stood" sight
to make an old man young"
Ihe NiCdI Ol OueSleI1Otu KIT very
young and very foolish. indeed, as he
looked at her; the more foolish, per-
haps, as. for certain crafty reasons, he
purposed within himself to speak def
nitely Of his own passion upon this par
ticular morning. Young fellows Of
five-and-twenty, without the slightest
grain of difidence in their nature, and
who have been receiving every legiti-
mate encouragement for months past,
feel a singular tingling in the soles of
their feet, and general indistinctness
before their brain, when the actual
morning of speaking definitely has ar
rived.
ITO be Contlnuedl
r1.w-.~r--n..s.s. r.z..-..A