The new enterprise. (Madison, Fla.) 1901-1908, 1907-01-17
Elvira, and Her Love Letters.

BY Claude Askew.

New Englanders would ever have ad-
mitted openly their pride in Elvira-
that would have been impossible 10
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 candytuft. FL
vira 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 cloud
of fair flaxen hair that would rail- IN
soft drifts round the sweet oval race
She lived with an old unmarried aunt
in a house close to the road, thick
hedge of evergreens surrounding II
and fencing off the garden. The house
belonged to the aunt, also small sum
in the bank, on the interest Of which
they lived in fair comfort.
Elvira wanted to earn her own Nv
ing. Once she had persuaded Aunt
Hardy, the village dressmaker, to take
her as an apprentice, but old Clarissa
Lane had descended with flaming
cheeks on the busy little woman.
Il just guess, Mis- Hardy" she cried,
that we amt SO hard put to it that
my own brothers chile 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
So Elvira rose from the table where
she was sitting sewing With another
girl-and as she shock away the
scraps and ships of silk from her
gown she shook away her own freedom
and independence. From .henceforth
she would belong utterly to this erect,
gray-haired old woman-she would go
back to the white house-and live
there, an imprisoned princess.
Old Clarissa worked herself to the
bone for Elvira. She hated to see
the girl doing rough work and soiling
her delicate pretty fingers. In the
same way Elvira was debarred from
working in the garden.
Don't you 60 for to brown your
face like them wild Mellor girls, Ell
vira," was Clarissa'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-
y To See Clarissa at her happiest mo-
ment was to see her on Sundays walk
ing up the aisle Of the meeting house
behind her niece, conscious of the ad-
miration given involuntarily to pretty
Elvira by even the strictest members
present, watching every fold of the
white dress and futter 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 maturity
She loved TO dress Elvira in soft
girlish muslins and 10 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 rebell-
ed, with flushing, sensitive face and
weak tears-she hated to go fine while
old Clarissa wore her ugly cottons
TO rags, but her protest was unheod-
ed by the strong, masterful old wo-
man,
Elvira was allowed nc sweetheart.
other girls could walk home from
meeting with their beaus. and sit with
them at winter time in lamp lit par
Tor, but Clarlssa trudged alongside FL.
vira like some old duenna, and the
young men of the village could only
gaze at the delicate fiowerlike girl,
who was not for them and their kind,
gaze with a half reluctant admiration,
also a dim perception that here was a
material too fine.
But the lover came-came in the
person Of one Gilman Holmes, young
New York pressman, who was spend
ing his brief holiday in search Of
copy" Chance or fate took him to
Elviras village. He came to study
types, he remained to sludy-love.
An alert, bright eyed man Of thirty,
precise in dress, slim in figure, Gilman
spoke with a 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 carthorse, brimmnig over
with nervous vitality, a creature of
high pressure.
He had taken rooms with Deacon FL
win, but the good man saw little of his
boarder, for Gilman took the village
by storm. and every door was open TO