Year: 1874

Florence Reed was the little fool
and Julia Willis, her cousin, it wa:
who called her so. You can judge
between them if you like: it is story
that will not take long in the telling


Florence-or Florry, for nobody
ever dreamed of calling her anything
else-FlOrry Read was not in the
least what one would call beauty


but then she had the softest eyes anC
the sweetest lips in the world. Some
thing at least to that effect Charley
Dennis had been heard to declare
and it is very much to be believed
that he spoke as one who should
know on this subject


The two had been lovers for quite a
while; lovers in the bud, as one may
say, and everybody knows that the
bud is the sweetest part of the whole
blossom season. The practical, com
mon-place stage of declaration had
not yet been reached it was the time
of broken hints and secret hand pres
sures, Of stolen kisses and general
felicity. Florry walked on air, and
forgot that it was not her native ele.
ment, till one unlucky day the clouds
melted under her feet, and let her
down to earth again with a rude
thump.


1t was the day of a celebration
given in Blackville to commemorate
some event perfectly uninteresting to
the world at large, but of the very
last importance in the eyes of the
Blackvillians. For, though Black.
vile was little place, its inhabitants
were men and women very much like
other people, and measured the uni.
:ersc on the Blackville yard stick
after the orthodox and proper fash,
( ion


The festivity, beginning with an
Grafton, ended with a pic ME in q
grove just outside the town, a mag
nifccnt maple grove, whose violet
scented solitude it was almost a sin
to protane with the Gathering OF
hardware and the popping of ginger
beer corks. Charley Dennis and
Florry We're there together, as they
were together everywhere. But un-
/ fortunately for Florry, Miss Adela
Brent was there also.


This young lady was not Black
vile born. She came from q much
larger town, town which would
have turned up its nose very high
indeed at poor little Blackville, had
it happened to be aware Of its exis-
tence at all For which reason the
Blackvillians naturally looked with
admiring awe upon it and all that
pertained to it. Miss Adela, then,
being visitor just arrived among
them, her debut was an event second
only to the great event commemorate
ed by the day. She was not prettier
than half their own girls there pres
ent, BIT she was wholly unlike them
in dress and style; in a ord, she
was something new; and if novelty
is one of the greatest of all charms
anywhere, it certainly is not the least
so in a small country town where a
wholesome fear Of his neighbor holds
each in decent restraint. So all eyes
we're fastened on the stranger, when,
at rather late hour, she made her
appearance on the ground, which in
nowise discomposed her. She settled
herself and her flounces, gave final
toss to the frizzy wilderness sur
mounting her little head, and, turn
ing back her fan-parasol, looked
around her with much the air with
which a traveller, stranded among
sayages, might observe their barbar-
Gus customs.


The first of the natives on whom
her glances chanced to rest, were
Florry and Charley, and she vouch-
saicd them a prolonged examination,
under which Florry's eyes fell and
her color rose; whereupon Adela,
who had already mentally inventori-
ed her as pretty, but deplorably with
out style, regarded her anew, with
amused compassion, as a girl who
could actually blush for being looked
at,


Charley did not blush, thou b.
On the contrary, he returned the
gaze with one that might have abash-
ed some girls.-But Miss Brent was
a young lady not easily abashed, and
if the very evident admiration in tie
handsome savage black eyes affected
her in any way, it was certainly
neither to embarrass nor offend her.
That Was plain from the manner in
which she received his advances
later; else the two would not have
made So rapid an acquaintance, nor
have been missing when, nd.by,
a stroll through the grove was pro-
posed, SO that Florry was obliged to
put up with the escort OF her cousin
Fred Willis, necessity considerably
more agreeable TO him than to her


Oh, what cloudy ending for a
day that had begun all sunshine .
Florry wondered piteously, when,
the festival at an end, they drove
back through the evening together,
could this be the same Charley, who,
on that very road, only few hours
before, bad said-well, it was not so
much lrhat be said as the way, and
especially the look, with which he
had said,-could this be the same,
this abstracted individual who had
to keep rousing himself out of some
reyery over-what 7 The charms Of
Miss Adela Brent? Florry greatly
feared it.


Yes, that was it. New brooms