The Cumberland Echo, 1893-11-16

[Copyright, 1893, by the Author.] What she could see in him I could never understand. He was certainly big, and presuma presumably - bly presumably strong and muscular, but neither in beauty nor in intelligence was he anything out of the ordinary of na nature's - ture's nature's handiwork. I have heard her rave about his eyes; they were the color of coffee-berries, and moderately large, but their ex expression, - pression, expression, to my mind, was eminently sheepish. He was disgracefully selfish, too, and was under the impression that his acquaintances could do nothing better than attend to his meals and ac accompany - company accompany him in his walks. He was also abominably inquisitive and peculiarly clumsy. And in spite of all this, she loved him - the most beautiful girl in the world loved him, and lavished caresses upon him that any man with eyes in his head would have given a kingdom to receive. His accomplishments were few. He pretended to catch rabbits, and was reputed a "ratter" on the strength of having once barked at a rat in a cage; the servants had, with much difficulty, taught him a stupid trick of running off with paper parcels in order to get at the sweets or biscuits hidden inside; and an infinite amount of shouting, hallooing, and waving of arms would occasionally induce him to jump over a walking stick held two inches above the ground. In short, he was a most ordinary white bull terrier pup, with a pink nose, surmounted by a black spot like * blot of ink from a pen. Nevertheless, I owe him a debt of gratitude for being the cause of my first introduction to Ella Barrington. It was on an August bank holiday - the one blazing hot day of a damp and dismal English summer. All the morn morning - ing morning I had sought to avoid my kind, and at length, by four o'clock in the after afternoon, - noon, afternoon, I had discovered a delightful bracken-covered dell by the dry bed of a brook in Richmond park, where, but for the distant shouts of the gay and h'less cyclist, nothing disturbed the pastoral beauty of the scene. Here I stretched myself out, with my arms under my head and my hat tilted over my eyes, and fell to dreaming and to wondering when, if ever, I, a bank clerk at two hundred a year, should so distinguish myself by the literary efforts which wholly occupied all my spare time as to be wholly inde independent - pendent independent of the bank, except as a place of safety for my superfluous thousands. If only I could write a brilliant novel - the novel of the season! But Ameri American - can American authors had declared that the stories of the world have all been told, and the serial papers preferred ro romances - mances romances written by young ladies as being more sentimental and soothing, and the libraries would have nothing to do with the work of an unknown man, and - A feminine shriek broke in upon my despondent musings, and the idea of a lovely woman in distress brought me to my feet She was lovely; of that there was no possible doubt. Tall and slender, with light brown hair and big appealing, dark blue eyes, eyelashes curling up upwards - wards upwards and a red mouth drooping down downwards - wards downwards dolefully. She was angry, flushed and fright frightened, - ened, frightened, as was a small, stumpy girl, evi evidently - dently evidently her maid, who accompanied her. She clasped her gloved hands implor imploringly, - ingly, imploringly, and looked at me with tears in her eyes. "My dog!" she panted "My dog,

madly in love with you that i tan think o nothing else But as my entire income doe* not exceed two hundred and titty a year I have thought it would be presumptuous to talk of marriage to you, even had I felt hopeful of gaining your love. I will not venture into your presence again until I have heard from you. Only, I entreat of you, for the sake of our de delightful - lightful delightful friendship, if I have made a mistake, and it is some one else whom you love, not to write to tell me what a fool I have been. I shall understand and respect your silence, and. much as I may suffer, I will not intrude upon you again. "Always, my dear Miss Barrington, what you wish me to be - your sincere friend or your most devoted adorer, "ERNEST WYNTER." I suppose other men have watched for the postman before now, but surely no man ever waited upon his footsteps as I did for three whole weeks. Even at the end of that time I should have gone on hoping, but for the fact that, meeting Ella and her sisters in the street, her manner toward me left no doubt as to her decision, for, whereas the younger members of the family were as friendly as ever, Ella's manner was chilling to a degree. She would not even look at me, nor would she shake hands when we parted. I own I was thoroughly miserable, and developed a faculty for caustic epigrams at the expense of the sex in general, writing several stories, enti entitled - tled entitled respectively, "Jilted," "No Heart," "A Coquette's Conquest," etc. Then, one dreary November day, I met Mr. Barrington in the streets of He was unusually genial. Richmond. and insisted upon my coming home to dinner with him. "Never mind about dress," he said. "It is quite an unceremonious oc occasion. - casion. occasion. And, to tell you the truth, I shall be glad of a stranger's presence to control the family weeping. My Ella leaves us to-morrow, as I suppose you know, upon her marriage with my friend Sir John Westbury, the future lord mayor of London." - No, I did not know, and I could have gone home and blown my brains out. But instead, I went to dinner with him, feeling that I must see Ella for the last time. She was looking very lovely, but ex extremely - tremely extremely pale, and her red-rimmed eyes seemed to dwell on me reproachfully. I could not congratulate her, the words stuck in my throat. Sir John West Westbury - bury Westbury was there, a handsome, well wellmannered - mannered wellmannered man, who hardly looked his fifty years of age. After dinner, Ella stole out to take a long farewell to her precious "Bull." Sir John objected to dogs on a honey honeymoon - moon honeymoon trip, and she feared she would be too nervous . to attend to him in the morning. Suddenly, as Sir John and Mr. Bar-' rington and brother Bob and I sat over our wine and smoke, the dining-room door burst open, and Ella flew in, in tremendous excitement, laughing and crying hysterically. In her hand she held aloft some dirty, crumpled pieces of paper, and at her heels was "Bull." "Mr. Wynter! Ernest!" she cried. "This letter. Is it from you? When did you write it? When did you send it? Bull must have taken it from the hall table and buried it! It is dated a month ago, and I have only just found it in the ground in front of his kennel. Oh, please explain to papa and Sir John! I can't. I - I thought you didn't care about me, and that is why I was going to marry him!"

PERSONAL AND LITERARY. - The pope has consented to act M godfather to the king of Spain at his approaching confirmation and first communion. Mgr. Cretoni, the nuncio at Madrid, will represent the pope at the ceremony, and will he the bearer of some very handsome presents. - Tolstoi, the Russian novelist, takes the ground that work makes man, as well as the busy ant, cruel. it is, he declares, the characteristic of crim criminals; - inals; criminals; and to make a virtue of work such as Zola has attempted to do is as monstrous as to make a virtue of the act of feeding. - Henry M. Stanley has made a col collection - lection collection of nineteen legends that were * related to him during his African travels, and they are to be published by the Scribners under the title: "My Dark Companions and Their Strange Stories." Henry's stock of legends is said to be inexhaustible. - Judge Barker, of the supreme ju judicial - dicial judicial court of Massachusetts, has sur surprised - prised surprised the lawyers not less than the newspaper men by issuing an order forbidding the newspapers to publish reports of a breach of promise of mar marriage - riage marriage suit on trial before him, or to make comments thereon. - Dr. Frederick A. Cook, who was with the last Peary expedition, and has just been doing some summer explora exploration - tion exploration in Greenland on his own account, anticipates great results from Peary's present journey. He thinks it will add many miles to the northern limit of ex exploration, - ploration, exploration, and that it is quite possible the pole will be reached. - Prof. Elliott Coues, of Washington, is in Si on tana gathering material for a new volume of the history of the ex exploring - ploring exploring expedition of Lewis and Clarke. In the preparation of the four volumes of the work already published he says he has handled over three thousand manuscripts. He will go from Mon Montana - tana Montana to Idaho to continue his investi investigations. - gations. investigations. - Mrs. Campbell Wilson, a prosper prosperous - ous prosperous florist of Cleveland, O., started with ' a cash capital of fifteen cents and an indebtedness of something over one hundred dollars. By going out and so soliciting - liciting soliciting orders and personally deliver delivering - ing delivering the plants and flowers, she cleared off the debt on her small establishment in one season. In the fall she erected a larger one at a cost of three hun hundred - dred hundred and fifty dollars, which she cleared of debt by the same means in two years. Her business rules are as follows: "Advertise thoroughly. Carry the best stock. Sell at small profits. Improve every opportunity to increase trade."

A TYPIFICATION OF AUGUST. This Month is the Pleasant Undertime of the Year. If it were required to typify August. I would suggest the month be likened to an oriental merchant, dealer in all manner of incense and perfume. In these still warm nights, the wandering merchant has traffic with woody slash slashings - ings slashings and thickets where grow black blackberry - berry blackberry brambles, firewood and milk milkweed, - weed, milkweed, and wild lettuce. Coming straight from these, and gathering a tithe from poppied and lillied gardens, such as the country still loves to culti cultivate, - vate, cultivate, the merchant brings to town a sachet of rural sweetness potent tc memories. wake delicious memories. August might be portrayed as swinging a cen censer - ser censer in which are turning fragrant leaves and blossoms. Furthermore, the month might be characterized as the month for butterflies; for it is at this point in the season that the most splendid specimens of the butterfly tribe make their appearance. The white and yellow rovers are every everywhere - where everywhere present - the butterfly common commonalty. - alty. commonalty. Here and there is seen a creature of such brilliant dyes, texture so ex exquisite, - quisite, exquisite, as to suggest that it could scarcely have had an earthly origin. What spirit clothes itself in the jetty darkness of night, relieved only by the patch of bright daytime azure at the base of its wings? One with colors of fire or of sunset I saw, hovering about the dusky sidewalk in a sort of a fatu fatuous - ous fatuous fascination; I could have caught it easily, so absorbed was the foolish insect. Another, vivid as an autumn leaf and as helpless a voyager, was seen floating down the stream. A but butterfly - terfly butterfly might be said to be a winged j scroll of mystic picture-writing. There i is one point of likeness to the bird; a butterfly has plumage, but all of down or feathery dust feathers. instead of true With the white and yellow butter butterflies, - flies, butterflies, everywhere flickering in this still sunshiny world, go their botanic coun counterparts, - terparts, counterparts, the white thistle-balls, lumi luminous, - nous, luminous, slowly drifting, like some kind of large diurnal firefly "with white fire laden." These rise at the least whis whisper - per whisper of the air from many a sleepy, ob oblivious - livious oblivious field mistily brushed over with thistle-down soft and fine as the wool of the lambs in spring born in the rough pasture. As if anticipating the deciduous time and fashion of the leaves, certain myriads of the insect world shed the corporeal habit that was theirs - -Atlantic. ' i

Bull Pray save him. Some 'Arries are murdering him!" Then she ran through the bracken and I ran after her to the spot where five little east-end roughs and a vil villainous - lainous villainous mongrel with one ear bitten through were wreaking vengeance upon a white bull terrier. My six feet of authority, armed with a stout stick, speedily dispersed the dog's assailants. They retreated in con confusion, - fusion, confusion, employing language so bad as to be fortunately unintelligible to my damsel in distress, who was by this time kneeling beside her precious dog, hugging him effusively and trying to wipe away the blood from an injured leg. The dog really had been a good deal knocked about, although I have no doubt he richly deserved it; he now, feeling himself an object of sympathet sympathetic - ic sympathetic interest, sat down and refused to move any further. I knew something about dogs, and speedily bound up his paw with my own handkerchief and that of his mistress, which was simply marked "Ella." Our faces were very close together over the dog's leg, and one of her tears splashed on to the back of my hand. Ella blushed, laughed and apologized. I never saw a lovelier blush or heard a sweeter laugh in my life. Seeing that the beast was resolved He was a not to walk, I carried him. tremendous weight, and fidgeted abominably. But with Ella beside me, and her sweet, white hand, from which she had withdrawn the glove, con constantly - stantly constantly stroking the brute's neck, I trod on enchanted ground. The maid brought up the rear, giggling a good deal, but, as she constantly dragged be behind - hind behind to stare at soldiers, her presence did not in any way hamper us. The accident took place near the White Lodge, and we had to pass out by the Star and Garter gates. Long be before - fore before we reached them I was madly in love with Ella, and had already in informed - formed informed her that this was the happiest hour of my life, when to my dismay I learned that she was Miss Ella Barring Barrington, - ton, Barrington, eldest daughter of "Barrington's Starch," as we called him at the bank, where he lodged a portion of the wealth he had acquired in the manufacture of that commodity. "Barrington's lived in a Starch" brand new stucco palace he had built for himself, near Richmond Hill; and, although he was not exactly a "Perkyn Middle wick," I could never understand how he could be the father of so re refined - fined refined and lovely and fairy like a being as Ella.

Before the gates of Barrington hall, as he called his brick and mortar mon monstrosity, - strosity, monstrosity, we paused. We were friends, dear old friends, by this time. I knew that she was nineteen, and that she loved nothing in the world so much as her bull terrier pup, except her father and her brother Bob, and she knew every detail of my uneventful life of seven-and-twenty summers. She asked me to come in; papa would want to thank me, she said. I found papa genial' enough, albeit somewhat condescending. "The young man from the bank," I afterwards found he called me, although my name, Ernest Wynter, was known to him, and Still I he himself had begun life as a mill hand at six shillings a week. was allowed to visit at Barrington hall, and to play tennis with the girls, and every day I grew more abjectly in love with Ella, whose unaffected charm of manner no parvenu surroundings could impair. Of course I daredgot to speak of my love to her. In my "position, that was out of the question. I could only try to kiss the dog's head, just after her lovely lips had rested there, and to de detain - tain detain her hand as long as possible in greeting and parting from her. Yet she must have guessed something of what I felt; for she took me one day into the kitchen-garden away from the children, and there, looking at me with lovely, tear-dimmed eyes, she suddenly remarked: "I am so unhappy, Mr. Wynter. Papa wants me to marry Aiderman Sir John Westbury. He is a nice old thing, and papa says I shall be lady mayoress. But I think he is quite as fond of my sister Bertha as he is of me, and - I am in love with some one else." The look with which she accompanied her last words was a revelation. She grew very red the next moment and began rapidly talking of something else, while I, like a fool, stood and stared at her until her wretched young brother Bob came bawling down the garden after her, and so took my chance of speaking from me. For the rest of the afternoon Ella avoided me, and, cursing my own stu stupidity, - pidity, stupidity, I went home and wrote her the following letter: "My Dear Miss BARRINGTON: - Tdon'tknow whether you will think me the most conceited ass alive for supposing that a few words of yours t-day encourage me to tell you what I meant to keep secret - that ever since I first, met you, three months ago, I have been 80

SCHOOL AND CHURCH. - There are 50,000,000 Lutherans in the world. - Brother Moody is 56 years old and is not ashamed to tell his age. - The charter of Oxford university was granted by Henry III. in 1248. - The famous Rugby school was founded by Lawrence Sheriff in 1567. - The great school at Harrow, in En Enland, - land, Enland, was founded by John Lyon in 1571. - A training ship was utilized in Lon London - don London for the teaching of homeless boys in 1866. - There are 141 schools of theology in this country, with 686 professors and 3,989 students. - Westminster university is the name of the new Presbyterian school at Den Denver, - ver, Denver, fall. It will be open for students next - The Argentine Confederation is the best in education among the South American republics. It has 3,227 schools and 254,000 pupils. - The Sunday question has been long in dispute in Toronto. In the battle at .the polls the Sabbatarians have won. The vote for Sunday cars is 13,060, against Sunday cars 14,085. - The first religious newspaper in this country was the Religious Re Remembrancer, - membrancer, Remembrancer, published by John W. Scott, Philadelphia, 1813. The Chris Christian - tian Christian Observer, printed at Louisville, Ky., grew out of it. - Mr. Philip D. Armour has been vis visiting - iting visiting Boston, inspecting the Massa Massachusetts - chusetts Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other educational institutions in that line, with the view of getting informa information - tion information that can be put to practical use for the benefit of the great college in Chicago which he has so splendidly en endowed. - dowed. endowed. - In British India the ancient Brah Brahmanic - manic Brahmanic religious belief still counts 211, 211,000,000 - 000,000 211,000,000 in its different sects. The Budd Buddhist - hist Buddhist form of belief is held by 7,000,000 in Farther India (Burmah), not in In India - dia India proper. The ancient faith of Zoras ter. dating back to the time of Cyrus and Darius, is professed by 90,000 who bear the name of Parsi or Persian. The followers of Mohammed number 57,000, 57,000,000; - 000; 57,000,000; the empress of India has a far greater number of Mohammedan sub subjects - jects subjects than the sultan or the shah. The ancient pagan or nature worshipers number 9,000,000.

HUMOROUS. - "A few million years hence the sun will give out no more heat." "Well, most of us won't be in need of heat." - Life. - An Abbreviated Season. - "Miss Typewriter, I see you have spelled sum summer - mer summer with only one *m.'" "Yes, sir; you know this has been a short sum summer." - Detroit - mer." - Detroit summer." - Detroit Free Press. - Mamma - "Harry, I want you to come in now and amuse the baby." Harry (aged 5) - "You'll have to excuse me, mother; I'm not in the low-comedy line." - Boston Transcript. - She - "What swell turnouts Maud's new beau always has. 99 He - "Yes, I have just found out about them - he gets three dollars a day for exercising the horses." - Detroit Tribune. - "How is it your little baby sister goes to sleep as soon as your father takes her?" Little-four-year old - "I 'spec it's 'cause she'd rather do that than stay awake and hear him sing." - Beau Monde. - George - "May I hope, dearest, that at some future time I may have the happiness of making you my wife?" Mamie - "Well, I hope so, I'm sure. I'm jnst tired of suing fellows for breach - of Monthly. promise." - Raymond's - Jiggers - "Young Justwed says his wife is a very magnetic woman." Jag Jaggers - "You - gers - "You Jaggers - "You bet she is. He asked her ' ' to allow him to go down-town with ! me the other night and she showed I both negative and positive qualities in less'n half a minute." - Buffalo Courier. - "When I die, dear," murmured the fashionable but delicate wife to her doting husband, "I want you to have my portrait painted every year, mak making - ing making it look a little older each year." "That would be very natural, my dear," replied the husband. ' "What replied the husband. would be natural?" "The - ah - paint, love!" - Customer - "Why do yon take the trouble of sending the gloves, a small parcel, away with the money? I might be putting them on while waiting for my change." Salesman - "Yes. and have them half worn out. We don't do business in that way. We mean that all goods shall leave the store in first rate order." - Boastop Transcript.