Year: 1870

MIsS TIGGs was not the legitimate Or
1Vl accepted form Of an old maid or, in
other words, Miss Tiggs was not tall, scrag-
gy, prim and sharp-nosed. On the con-
trary, Miss Tiggs was of roley-poley order,
short, plump and full-faced, and without
bit more primness than was necessary to
keep up the dignity of the profession into
which the fortune of life had cast her, for
Miss Tiggs kept boarding school for
young ladies.


Besides her pupils, Miss Leonora had two
nephews-one an inmate of the establish
ment, and one away at school in distant
city at Miss Tiggs expense, whom she had
not seen for nearly five years. The one
who was an inmate Of the establishment, q
youth of twenty, Walter Askam by name,
was under continual sentence of banish-
ment, or, in other words, since he had
reached the mature age of fifteen had
been told daily that he was too old to be
dweler in the same house with his aunt's
twenty-five rose buds, and that he must
make up his mind to immediate removal
He had made up his mind, but somehow
the sentence, though reiterated almost
daily, was never carried into effect, and so
this wolf remained in the fold.


To say that Walter, out of all the twen-
ty-five charming pupils of Miss Leonora,
did not see anything to charm him into
breaking through that terrible line of de-
markation his aunt had laid down for him,
is capable of. There was one, the neatest
and sweetest little body that ever ate
bread and butter-her name it was Kate
Dillon, and her age sweet sixteen-that
he was especially fond of, and that state of
things had existed four years, since the
first day she had been taken into Miss
Tiggs' school, which happened in this
way.


When Miss Tiggs went to school herself,
she had an intimate, Lille Pierce, by
name, with whom the school-companion-
ship was perpetuated. Lille married and
after six years of matrimony was left a
widow with one daughter. Six years. more
struggle with the world as a widow, and
Lille one day laid down the load of life,
and left this daughter to the tender mercies
Of the world as embodied in Miss Leonora
Tiggs, who closed the eyes of the dying
woman, and breathed in her ear the CON-
forting assurance that Kate should never
want a mother while she lived and well
she kept the promise, for in the four years
she had been under her hands she had
grown into as elegant little lady as could
be found in summer days walk, and as
wonderfully in love with Walter Askam as
1t was possible to be. All this could not
help leaking out, and into Miss Tiggs'
eyes and ears, and, as a consequence,
troubled her amazingly. One restriction
after the other had she put on the couple,
but all seemed to be of no avail, and sim.
ply made the lovers regard her as tyrant,
and one whose breast was not susceptible
to the grandc passion.


At last came the climax. Miss Tiggs en-
tered the breakfast room one morning
noiselessly and suddenly, and caught Miss
Katie kissing Walter right on the lips
This was too much, and the fiat went forth
Had she caught Walter kissing Katie, there
might have been some condoling, but the
act reversed showed malice prepense anC
on the spot the sentence of separation went
forth, separation, not Punishment for Walter
from the Tiggs mansion-for Miss Leonor;