The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1910-01-19
= CHAPTER I. 1
The Wine in the Grape Flower.

dust, dullneSS anu QecOrum, VIII
"Mr. Augustus Jones" upon the
trand-new %doorpIate. A drawing
room, like ones life, oppressively
stiff and uninteresting; dining room
to match; husband to match-every-
thing to match! Amusement, pleas
ure, play, the quick-coursing blood,
the jollity, the "go" of existence-no-
where.
So much for Chaplain.
g. And Spain? Spain, just across
the Pyrenees there-Spain, whence
the warm wind blows on Belinda's
face at this moment-what Of that
alternative? An uninteresting hus-
hand to start with, so much in COM
mon have futurity's chances both
BUT not a stiff, not a dull one. A
genial little human creature in the
nsain is Maria Jose de Seballos, wine
merchant and commission agent of
Seville, unburdened, it's. true, by SUI
perfuity of intellect, but light of step
in waltz and cachuca. and singing
tenor love songs p%assably; his swar-
thy fingers too beringed, his swarthy
locks to beragamoted for the very
finest taste; his diet overtending
somewhat toward garlic; and still,
IL but by virtue of his Spanish pic
turesqueness, less vulgar far than
Mr.. Augustus Jones, of Chaplain.
What would life be by his side?
Belinda crosses her arms, shakes
her head philosophically, yawns a
little, then casts herself full length
On the turf, in n Of those attitudes
Of delicious Southern laziness which
Murillo's beggar children have made
familiar to US, and, gazing up through
the branches of the cork trees at the
intense small-blue Of the sky above,
begins to mediate.
Sunburned as a maize in June, IN
shackled bodily and mentally by rule
as any young gitana who roams the
mountains yonder, through what con-
trajectory within Of fortune came Be-
linda O'Shea by this high-sounding
name of hers? A name reminding
one irresistibly OF the musk and
nillefleurs of boudoirs, of Mr.. Pope's
verses, china teacups, rouge, pearl
powder, artifice! She will be seven
:.een in a month or two, but possesses
Few Of the theoretic charms assigned
by poets and novel writer's to that
age. Her hands and feet are diSpro-
portionately large for her slender
limbs, her waist is straight but form
less, her gait and gestures r mas
culine-no, not that either; to eyes
chat can read Alright the girl is as
tull of potential womanly grace as is
he grape flower of wine, and still l
1are not call her feminine" as peo-
pie of the North or of cities under
stand the word. She can play paume,
the national Basque ives or rackets,
with any gamin Of her stature in St.
Jean de Luz; in the excitement of the
sport will show hot blood like her
comrades-occasionally, indeed, say
at some disputed point of a SET
match, will be tempted into using a
very mild gamin's e~xpletive or two;
she can row, she can swim, she can
whistle. But through her great dark
eyes, poor, forsaken Belinda, the soft
est girlish soul still looks out at you
with pathetic incongruity, and though
her vocabulary be not choice, she pos
sesses heavens great gift to her sex,
a distinctly, excellently feminine
voice. Of her possible beauty e
some future time we will not nc.
speak. She is in the chrysalis or he;
bledehoy stage, when you may an
day e a skinny, sallow, ugly duck
ling of a girl turn into a pretty one,
like a transformation in a Christmas
piece. Eyes, mouth, feet, hands-all
look too big for Belinda at present;
and as to her raiment, her tattered
frock, her undarned-no, I must real
fy enter a little upon the a~ntecedents
OF my heroine's life before 1 make
known these details in all the dis
graceful ~nakedress of fact to the pub
lie,
TO begin with, the blood of earis
and kings (Hibernian kings) runs in
her veins. Her mother, the Lady
Elizabeth Vansitta-t. fifth daughter
OF the Earl of Liskeard, at the roman
tic age of %forty-one, fel! in love with
and married a certain fascinating
Irish spendthrift, Major Cornelius
O'Shea, whom she met accidentally at
q Scarborough ball; endured the neg
lect, and worse than neglect, of her
handsome husband, for the space of
two years; then, happily for herself
poor soul, died, leaving Cornelius the
father Of n baby daughter, the Be-
linda of this little history.
Why Major O'Shea, an easy-tem-
pered, easy-principled soldier of for
tune, no longer himself in the fresh
est bloom of youth-why O'Shea il
the first instance should have been
at the pains to WOO his elderly Lady
Elizabeth, no one could tell, except
that she was Lady Elizabeth, and
that interest, that ignis fatuus OF
ruined men, might be supposed TO lie
dormant in the Earl, her fathers,
family. Whatever his motives, wha..
ever his matrimonial disappoiri
ments, the Major, even his bas:
friends allowed, behaved himself
creditably on his wife's death. Wore
a band that all but covered his hat
sunre mayor aoain tn tn11nh q nard