Stockton Herald, South Durham and Cleveland Advertiser. — 1882-10-14 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

MILLER JIM'S DAUGHTER. "Yes, that's the old mill over there? Rind of party and romantic-looking, ain't it? But it seems awful lonesome to us folks as knew it full of life and just piling in the grist all day long. That there water-wheel didn t stop for repairs in them days; it just buzzed along all the time, and the teams stood around, and you'd see the boys coming up the hill ridin' an old mare, with • great sack of grain thrown over her instead of a saddle—trit-trot, trit-trot, and a half-grown, barefooted boy on her neck—folks all sent a boy to mill in those days, if they had one. And you see that there old house? There's where Miller Jim and his darter lived. We boys used to cast sheep's eyes over at that door, I tell you, and when she'd come and look out kind of unconscious like and portend not to see us, but shade her eyes with her hand and look away down the valley, it was just as if an angel from Heaven had lit down there. Party? Why, there wa'n't a chap in Sugar Valley that didn't think she was the handsomest gal in the world, and when she smiled on any of us with that kind of sort of sweet insinuatin' way she had, we'd just have walked on hot plowsheers for her, and drawed lots for the privilege. "What are ye figurin'?—a sketchin' the ruin Well, ye don't see any ruin there but that of the senseless wood and stone. The ruin was made by one of you painter chaps, darn his picter If I could have held his head in the mill-race for half an-bour rd have died happy—and that's what makes me cry now like a poor, weak critter. I imterduced him to her; he was a rnovin' round here gettin' sketches, as he called 'em, of the valley, and I may as well own up he was a nice, smart-looking, well-spoken chap, and paid his way liberally. They said be was only working for amusement, and so it turned out; and one day I told him he hadn't ever seen the prettiest picter in the place, and I said it was Miller Jim's daughter, and he'd ought to see her. The next Sunday I was at the church, and so was the painter chap, and we happened to sit together, and when the choir sang there was one voice that kind of tarried the tune alone. I knew it well, and it made me tremble all over with happiness; and the stranger listened, and says be, in a whisper, 'What a heavenly voice.' " 'Yes,' sez I 'and it's ker—the one in the straw bonnet and white veil, the girl that's singin' air; that's Miller Jim's darter: "After church nothing would dobutlmustinterdtice him, which I did, God forgive me; and he walked by her and carried her book, just asif he anus had known her, but then her father was with them, only he wasn't of any account, kind of shiftless, believed everybody honest. till he found them out, and then he would kinder apologise for them, and he lend money as long as he had a penny in his pocket, if anyone made up a good story, and never locked a door, or took over toll, or made a sharp bargain; kiml of witless and foolish, -.vith a soft heart that altos kept him poor, though! don't know as he ever wanted anything much. "A dreadful event this, sir, which has haptied," said an individual to —, one of the h fun royal ctionarlea of a certain yal burgh. less me! what is it ?" " Why, your neighbonr has committed suicide." "Whit on?" anxioualy enquired the baillie. ."Well, beauty is a misfortune, lithe grace  of God doesn't go with it. Nobody suspicioned anything wrong, when all to oncet it came over us like a thunder- blast. The miller's girl was gone; gone with the painter chap, but we never knew how or where. There was more than one of us that was goin' to oak Miller Jim about it, but when we come to look in his face we just didn't say anything. The miller was a changed man; he'd Idlers had a smile and a Pleasant word for us boys—he wasn't ever what you would call jolly, but he had his little quiet jokes, they were the same old ones over and over, but we expected 'em. Now he had a look as if something inside was dead; and hie lips, that used to be kind of smiling and foolish, they were shut like a vice, and he never mentioned her name to living mortal. 'And he got sort of absent-minded—forgot to take toll from a widow's grist—used to stop little children and net them on their heads, and there was anus a tear just falling from his eyes —cold, I 'spose, 'cause he didn't take any care of himself; and then he took a good bit of notice of a little child—a pretty little mite of a girl —that lived near, and one day he see her leaning out of an upstairs window,and he ran over and tel her mother she would fall mebbe, and get hurt; the woman had an ugly temper, and she says to him, says she, Dun take care of my own children, that's more than you could do with yours!' and he looked at her sort of still and white for a moment and turned away; the next day the mill waxn't goin', nor the next, and on the third we looked and found him in the race —but whether he slipped in or drowned himself of purpose of course nobody can tell for sure. I've often looked into the faces of handsome , wimmen I've seen since then, and tried to find one that favoured that gal of Miller Jim's, but for right down sweetness and rale beauty I've never seen her equal; and how she could leave ; us all, as would kayo died for her, is more than , I can conceive. That's a rale good picter you've got of the mill, but you can't see the bull of it—there's two people there when I look •at it, and one of them is-.—l wish I had the trick of painting a picter from memory—she--why there's something in my eyes--it's the dampness, I guess—this mill air allus does affect me just - so."—Detroit Free Press.