Year: 1861

BY AUNT JENNIE.


While yet school girls, my friend Belle
and myself, received from mutual friend
and school, mate during one Of our vaca.
tons, letter containing a pressing invi-
tation for us to spend some weeks with her
in her lain dear home"


We consulted our careful mammas about
the expediency Of going alone; that is to say
without male protector, in the stage coach.
We imagined ourselves to have arrived at
the 'years Of discretiou,' and argued that


we were fully able to take care Of ourselves.
Our parents thought differently, but how
ever, after deal of fearful pleading and
eloquent logic we gained our point, the de-
sired permission. But, before proceeding
farther, will inform thee, gentle reader, or
simple reader, who "Bclle" and myself"
were. To commsnce then with the egotis-
teal personal pronoun, am, or rather was,
at the time the events of which am writ


ing took place, a young lady Of sixteen
years with considerable share Of good
common sense, at that time however, gov
erned nightly by fancy or Imagination, in
short dreamer, indulsing in the most uto-
plan visions of impossible beauty, such as
can never be noticed save in that blessed
land of whose joys ''it hath not entered
into the heart of man to conceive" Of
beauty, that glorious boon! / had none but
just comeliness sufficient to save me from
that, to woman, dreadful adjectiye-ugiy.
Should any reader of an enquiring turn
of mind seek more information on the
subject Of my personal appearance or char
ac,er, will with pleasure send such one
my picture or grant a personal interview
In relation to my friend will he more ex-


plicit. Isabella Winters, year or two my
senior, was my most intimate friend, accord
ing to all the rules and regulations of that
sacred bond among schools girls. Later in
life we sometimes learn, with ridicule, but
oh, with bitterness of spirit too, to look
upon such friendships as sentimental non.
sense. But who would not retain that
freshness of spirit, that invests the innocent
intercourse of school girls with sacred
ness and purity believing such love can new
er die; who would not, were it possible,
return to that foolish, happy confidence in
human nature, where tr"e and unsullied
ourselves We believe all so. But digrcss.
Belle had the gift Of beauty. Her face was
one Of the sweetest have ever seen. Let
me see if can describe her as she was in
the bloom Of girlhood: Petite in figure,
most beautifully moulded in every limb,
graceful and agile in every movement as a
fawn, with complexion pure and transpa-
rent thro' which g!owed on either check
peculiar brilliant color I've seldom seen in
any complexion, with hair black, silken.
abnndant-wth lips scarlet, mobile, beau,
tifully shaped, with large, brilliant. spiritual
grey eyes, (and by the way hold grey eyes
to be either the most beautiful or most in
expressive and disagreeablc Of any o:hers,)
with hands and feet fairy like and beauti-
fully shaped, and with winning sweetness
Of manner, does she not, reader, seem a
lovely fancy sketch? Yet write of her as
she was without exaggeration. We don't
OCCASIONAL see such beauty even out of
novels. In character, Belle was amiablc,
sweet and loving, with NJ great strength Of
character and no decided talent as know
now. She was general favorite, beloved
by her own sex and also by the opposite.
It was in the "leafy month Of June" that
we started for B., to visit our friend Hattie
Thompson. 1t was a journey of two days
continuance; it was balny, bright day
when bctimes We arose, breakfasted and had
completed every arrangement long ere the
coach made its appearance. Belle had