Year: 1877

We were all sitting on the piazza, ex-
cept those of us that were swinging in
the hammocks among the trees; the sea
wind was blowing over US, the birds
we're darting low here and there, and
the bantams and the spring chickens
and the big black Cochins were cluck-
ing and picking in the grass, watched
over by the old King Charles, who re-
deemed us from vulgarity, and it was a
scene of domestic comfort, as Aunt Hell
en- said. Aunt Helen, by the way, be-
came very pleasant addition to the
comfortable appearance of the scene, as
she said it. She was just as plump as
a woman ought to be when her next
birthday is maybe her fortieth. She had
a soft flush on her cheek, where the dim
pie was yet as fresh as when she was a
girl, and the flush deepened sometimes
into real damask her teeth we're like
rows of seed corn for whiteness, and her





eyes we're just as brown as brook water !;
only her hair-that was quite white.
Lovely hair, though, for all that; she
parted it evenly over her low, level fore
head and above the yet black eyebrows; /;
and we all declared, every day of our
lives, that Aunt Helen was a beauty.
81 used to be" she had replied '.but
that's all gone now. l have put my
youth behind me-


Perhaps she had. But we young peo-
pie used to think differently when we
saw Mr.. Thornton coming up the road.
and Aunt Helen's eyes resolutely bent
on her work, but her color mounting and
mounting, till the reddest rose that ever
burned in the sunshine was net so rich.
| Mr.. Thornton saw 1T too, no doubt, for
he always looked and looked intently all
the way by. But the truth was-I shall
have to tell you all about it if tell you
any-that when Aunt Helen was twen-
ty years younger, she and Ms< Thornton
were lovers. 80 sney had been lovers ev-
CT since they could remember. They had
built their house at last, and her we'd
ding dress was made. If she was beau
ty. he was every inch her mate-I know
he was, because he is to-day-One of the
men it does you good to see, who look
as if they could hold up the world if
need be, and inspire you with confidence
in their power. Now what in the world
do You suppose that, with their house
furnished. and the cake baked, and a
dozen years of intimate affection to bind
them, Aunt Helen and Mr.. Thornton
found to quarrel about? She declared
she wouldn't keep hens And he de-
clared that then he wouldn't keep house
That was the whole of It, to condense
the statement one word led to another,
and another led to more, and finally, in
towering passion himself, he told Aunt
Helen that she had better learn to con-
troll her temper if she didn't want to be
a vixen entirely, and Aunt Helen took
the ring off her finger and laid it on the
table without word and sailed out of
the room. and refused to see him when
he called in the morning, and sent back
his letter unopened, and cut the wedding
cake and put some of it on the tea table
and sent the rest to the fair. Perhaps,
on the whole, Mr.. Thornton might have
been right. Exactly one week from that
night Mr.. Thornton was married to Ma.
ry Mayhem, an inoffensive little body
who would have married anybody that
asked her, and she went into the house
that had been furnished according tc
Aunt Helen's taste; and Immediately
afterward hen-house of the most fanci.
full description of architecture, with gild
ed vanes and scarlet chanticleers brist
ling all over it, rose on the hill behind
his house, full of fancy fowl, aud the
little lawn was all alive with its over
flow, and you couldn't go by the place
without meeting fock of cropple crown
or partridge Cochin, or white Leghorn
or black Spanish. flying up on each sep
arate piece of fence to crow out Mr.
Thornton's triumph-reversing the ole
tradition of the Grower, and crying. IN,
women rule here I"


They say Nr. Thornton grew very olt
in few years. His inoffensive littl
thing of wife turned out to be smar
termagant, who led him pretty dance
Perhaps she was dissatisfied with he
piece of heart but then she knew tha
was all when she took it. He treatet
her always gently-perhaps feeling h
had done her some wrong in marrying
her-and gratified her every wish, al
though, having cared nothing for her i
the beginning, it is doubtful if he care
} any more for her in the end. The EN-
came after eighteen years, when Mrs
|, Thornton was killed in railroad CO.
! lision, and her husband was left wit
: four children on his hands. rude, noisy
. ill-faring cubs, as all the neighbors sale
If Mr.. Thornton had ever inpatient
: chanced to think that his punishmer


had lasted long enough, he thought no
e that it was just beginning, when h
n found himself alone with those children
II He wnndered that his wife had had ON