Baraboo weekly news. [volume] (Baraboo, Wis.) 1912-197?, 1913-10-02
r in neaTtn

r, the witness that the earth and
the air, the birds and the flowers, the
airaculously recurring trees and
rasses, bore to the omnipotence of
sod made her tranquil. There were
moments when Lady lMadge, who was
carefully guarded from all trouble,
called her great-niece insensible.
"A careless hussy," she called her,
without stinting b er phrases, to her
old friend and crol Y. This was when
she discovered that something or 9TH
er had Misrepresentation Mechlin lap
pets. Sir Jocelyn's punch bowl that
was 200 years old, her seed-pearl
brooch with the amethyst in the mid
die, the very last half-doZen of silver
spoons dating from William and Mary
1t was not often that she remember
ed TO ask for things. Her memory was
not what it had been, and the rooms
she occupied were SO crowded up with
bric-a-brac that one might marvel ii
anything could be missed.
Only the crony and the old servants
knew how very bare the rooms were
beyond those used by Lady Madge.
One by one the things had gone to
keep a roof over Lady Madge's head
and food and wine on her table, to
preserve Aet Old age It's peace ana
L0AA4AoAI0lIl.
4ne Crony knew, and would lay his
Ola manu-, hBOLLsa ana STAINED, upuA
G44e Iauy > I4C.Io IVORY Claw Wnen sDs
GeAOdnCeQ Aer niece. his OWL nouro
Oh p5aCo AHA comfort were Just tnOSo
ne spent Win MS old friend, Al
Streamstown the wolf gr1nned In the
doorway. 10 the old man CeclI1a
showed like guardian angel.
About Lady Madge's neck there
hung always long chain holding a
immature of herself set with pearls,
1t showed her as she had been at her
loyeliest-the delicious color, the thin,
delicate, arched brows, the eyes that
looked away, the soft, smiling lips,
between punches of curls that gave a
nun-like shadow to the face. Lady
Madge looked in no mirrors in these
latter days. When she would see her
self she looked at the miniature or at
her old lovers faithful eyes.
You remember, my friend" Lady
Madge would say to the crony, that
it was so the mad poet sung me. They
say he became Of considerable motor
iety in England afterward. 1t was a
pretty thing he wrote for me.
The she would draw her harp to her
and sing
Music when soft voices die
Vihrates in the memory
OdOrs when sweet Yiolets Sicken
Live within the sense they quicken
Rose-leaves when the rose is dead
Are heaped for beloyeds bed:
And so thy thoughts when thou art
gone
Love ieself shall slumber on.
HE was a pretty fellow, De mol
gyms" she would say, "and We were
ali wild because / played at reyolu'
ton with him. 1t cost me year OF
Sir Denis friendship, but we made it
up. What was a mad poet, with a
face like a lady's, to man with the
beautifully turned calf that Sir Denis
had on him till the day he died! And
six-foot-two in his stockings! Dear
me. he was a mani When he fell to
cursing the grooms fled before him;
but the dogs and horses adored him. ;
She would nod her smiling old
head ct the portrait of Sir Denis above
the mantelpiece.
Below the portrait hung miniature
of the poet encircled with seed pearls
and French paste. 1t had not hung
there in Sir Denis time.
You played at revolution with him
yes the crony would say, because
you knew that in your gown of white
poplin, embroidered with silver sham
rocks, none could resist you. You re-
member the balcony in Sackville ST.,
whence he flung his seditious pamph-
lets, and you kept handing him others
as those were scattered?'
Il remember. Somewhere, unless
that mink Cecilia has rid me of them,
as she had rid me of better things,
should be a stack Of his rotbish. |
will say for him that he dashed Castle,
reagh with his tongue. A pretty fell
Iowa pretty fellow; but | take
shame to myself for the part I played.
He had more than one wife, if the
truth were told and | showed myself
with him only to madden my lovers. "
Beauty like yours could do no
wrong" the old lover would say.
Cecilia had heard the tale, and many
another such, smiling absently to her
self about them. The stack of the
mad poets seditious essays had not
gone the way of mortality. She knew
where it lay in chest lined with
sandal wood that bore date. 1907.
She had been minded to turn them
out once to make way for Lady
Madges perishable fneries, but she
had spared them for the sake of the
poet who hadwritten beautiful things,
as even she knew, yet nothing to be
compared to Tom Moore and his melo-
dies.