rR Bellefonte, Pa., July 2, 1897. OLD BOOKS. 01d books are best— Like well tried friends who've stood the test Of time ; in each familiar line Within the oft-turned pages 1 Can find a charm divine That idlers heed not, glancing by. Ah! I love the books that long have stood Like watchful sentinels upon my shelf, Mindful, care-taking for my good, Aud erablematie of my life's best self. Ah! when they speak my very heart and soul grows young, Beyond the weak expressions that are strung In words. Old faces greet My longing eyes within the calm retreat Where books are kept—books old and dear, Whose friendship grows the closer year by year. —Portland Transcript. A POTENT MEMORY. They were all sitting on a board piazza, the wide blue sunlit sea washing the rocks below them, the wild green unspoiled Cape Ann country rolling away behind them. Some one had just mentioned the Philadel- phia Centennial, appealing to the com- pany to recall the heat of that summer ; all gave due assent, except Alice Andrews ; she, fair lady, only looked sweetly, slightly puzzled, and all but imperceptibly shook her head, as though she tried in vain to call up a past too dim. ‘The Mayhews have just gone to Lenox,’ said Mr. Sam Merrill, from his seat on the steps ; he made the announcement with the misplaced emphasis of one who inter- feres to change the subject of conversation. “Old Judge Mayhew, Henry’s grand- father, used to live in Lenox the year round. Fanny Kemble put him in her novel. I used to see her go horseback riding with Henry’s father.” It was old Mrs. Andrews, the hostess, who was talk- ing. These sentences were delivered with vivaeity ; but suddenly the life died out of her tone, and she added, weakly, ‘Of course little children take notice of people they hear talked about.” ‘Mother, what was the name of that daughter of Mrs. Kemble’s you met when you were visiting the Dalworthys ?”’ Alice asked. The question was not answered. Mrs. Andrews only said, grumpily, and as if she were deaf, that she wished she had a foodstool, and Alice got one, and placed it with a pretty air of affectionate solicitude. The old lady sat silent after this, leoking gloomily out to sea. ‘What is it you are making, Alice?” asked Mrs. Whitman. There were three visitors ; Mr. James Fenton made the third. Alice held up for inspection a beautiful trifle, a net of gold thread that she was creating wish only the help of a commonplace crochet needle. “It’s for the hair,” she said. ‘‘Of course they are not worn, but with some tea gowns or a picture dinner dress it would be lovely. It’s meant to go like you see them in Greek statuary sometimes—this way,’’ and she held it about her own low- coiled bronze-brown hair. “Well, you are really wonderful,’”’ said Mrs. Whitman, with conviction ; ‘‘that’s an exquisite thing.”’ “It would be more becoming to you ; there’s nothing like black hair for it, and your odalisque type—Now look,”’ and she held the net about the other woman’s head. ‘‘Isn’t that lovely 2’ to the men. ‘‘Mary dear, you must have it. No, now, don’t say a word ; you know it takes me no time at all to do such things. Just you and I shall have them, and no one else. I'll have it done to-day ;’ and she fell to work gracefully, easily, but more busily than before. ‘‘You ought to have a Greck gown to wear with yours, Miss Andrews. I’ve imagined how you’d look in one, one such as you see on some of those Tanagra figurines.”’ This from Merrill, with simple. self-forgetful sincerity. “Why, thank you ! How nice of you to think it out like that, and how wise to know it’s the Tanagras I ought to copy ! Some of them are really fashionable-look- ing, don’t you know, Mary ?”’ Mary did not respond to this appeal, and Jim Fenton's eyes, catching Alice’s, were luminous with the effort to convey the ef- fect of a wink without the gross reality. Mrs. Whitman was far too stout to wear Greek gowns, and her weight was known to be the affliction of her life. She said now : “It looks as if it were to be hoops again rather than Greek gowns. Don’t you re- member, Alice, how we used to think the bigger our hoops the more we looked like grown-up ladies ?”’ “I never wore any,’’ said Alice, gently, a faint touch of wonder on her lovely face. Soon the guests departed, the men ac- companying Mrs. Whiteman to her own cottage. “I'll send the net over in the morning,’ was Alice's last word to her. # When the three had turned a curve o the pine-shaded road, Fenton hurst into a chuckling laugh. “Well, what a time! Isn’t absurd ?’ said Mrs. Whitman. ‘‘Alice is certainly the sweetest thing in lots of ways, and I say she has kept her looks wonder- fully—really wonderfully ; but this thing about concealing her age is growing on her till it looks serious to me—it’s like lunacy. Now when I spoke about hoops, I was so sorry in a minute, hut I never thought. Of course she—My cousin Mildred Hope knew her when they were children all in hoops together. I'm so frank about my own age, and we are just about the same.”’ Mrs. Whitman paused, panting a little for breath. ” “The thing that breaks me all up’”’ said Fenton, ‘‘is the way she shuts off the joys of life from that poor old mother of hers. That old girl has known everybody from Webster down, and she’s got to her an- ecdotage, vet she ain’t allowed to go back of times any whipper-snapper of sixty could talk about. I call it cruelty to age.’ ‘She seems very devoted to her mother,’ said Sam Merrill, seriously. “Indeed she is, Mr. Merrill.”’ Mrs. Whit- man answered : ‘“‘but itis hard for Mrs. Andrews to repress herself, and she tries so hard, and is so good ahont it, poor thing !”’ She ended with a little laugh ; then added, with solemn, pious pity, “I really think she sacrifices 2a great deal of the pleasure she might get out of life reducing her age for Alice.’ . After Mrs. Whitman entered her own door the men went down to the shore and seated themselves on the rocks. “Well, Sam,” said Fenton. “I'm ashamed of you, setting one woman on another like that for your own Mach- avelian amusement, and bringing such a hard knock on poor Alice.” + the past that stretched behind a certain | it too | He laughed loudly at Merrill’s bewilder- ed response, and explained : ‘“The Whit- man took it out on Alice for your pointed hint that she herself couldn’t wear a Greek gown. I bet Alice thinks your compli- ment costs more than it came to.”’ ‘Mrs. Whitman unintentionally stum- bled into a very natural blunder. It was a blunder. as Miss Andrews feels the way she does. It’s agreat pity she is not open about her age as Mrs. Williams is herself ; it would be so much—"’ ‘See here, I’m not sweet on the fair Alice and I guess you are, but I'll not hear her run down with a comparison like that. Don’t the Whitman try to make out she and Alice are the same age—about the same’? - Well, are you ass enough to swal- low that. I know all about it, and she’s a good seven years older. It’s six of one and half a dozen of the other for lying, and Alice is the sillier and more amusing, and I’m grateful enough to like her for that.” ‘Alice is certainly silly on that point’ —DMerrill discussed the matter very grave- ly—*‘‘but she seems wonderfully sweet and womanly on many others."’ ‘‘She certainly does ; but you ought to notice and correct the way in which you express yourself on any of her moral merits. You always say ‘seems’ in a most doubting Thomasy, damning way.”’ ‘“What do you think about it yourself ?”’ and Merrill turned on Jim his sad gray questioning eyes; the sadness was only their usual expression, and only part of his habitual air of meeting life with patient philosophy. Jim’s younger and rounder face length- ened now. He picked up a bit of rock and and threw it into the green curling break- ers. ‘Sam,’’ he answered, after this exercise, ‘‘it’s queer to see you took like this, and I want to be glad, but I ain’t sure I am. You feel it yourself—that you can’t tell anything about her, that she’s such a won- derful work of art youcan’t guessat her inside works at all ; she seems and she seems. I haven’t any views different from your own, if you’ll face the music and see what you do think yourself. I’ve no con- vietions, but I’m almighty uncertain whether she’s got any heart at all. I'm sure she’s not got a bad one, but has any kind of blood-pumping apparatus survived! She’s been tribute-taking and conquest making through the longest reign I ever heard of, and that’s a credit to her, and she ain’t stuck up about it either. I think she’s done herself proud to come down to date not only so good-looking, but so pret- ty-behaved. But now, old man, as to whether she’s pretty-behaved because she’s old-fashioned enough to see that being nice and sweet is a card, like a good complexion and keeps her springs and wires well oiled for the purpose—well, I ain’t saying it ain’t so.” Fenton’s speeches were apt to be shorter and clearer than this. Now he looked the discomfort and embarrassment that caused his rhetorical deterioration. ‘It is horrible to have drawn you out to talk so about—about a gentle, attractive woman.”” Sam said this slowly, looking over the water ; but he said no more, made no efforts to confute his friend’s view. ‘‘Yes, you are pretty low, that’s a fact, Sam,” the other answered, ‘‘and you’ve entrapped my youth. For two big men to be sitting here cutting into a pretty little dolly just to see if sawdust—’’ ‘‘Stop, Fenton, she is too accomplished, too clever in her own way to be called a doll ; but she may be very artificial ; she seems so, sometimes. With all that, she— she has touched and interested me greatly. I dare say she would refuse me, she has refused 'somany. It’s strange she has never married ; but I don’t understand her, that’s the sum of it ; I don’t understand her, and I’m going to get out of the way. I’m not going to upset my life with such a half-hearted sentiment ; it is half-hearted, but it might be a great bother.”’ ‘“ ‘He who fights and runs away’—I’'m sure I hope you will live to fight another day. I suppose the matrimonial warfare would make you happier ; but’-—he stop- ped and lowered his tone—*‘I’d be afraid here ; anything for you but unadulterated waxworks.’’ ‘She has mind, though she—?"’ “Though she conceals it as well. as she can—perhaps so. Why don’t you go to Lenox yourself ?”’ There was no reference between Mrs. and Miss Andrews to the misfortunes and misdeeds of the afternoon. Probably they would have perished on the rack rather than come to any open communication on the subject of Alice’s age and her desire to conceal it. Mrs. Andrews was a simple, straightforward old lady, and had reached a stage in life when to mildly boast of her years would have been for her a natural | form of vanity ; but she had learned to | comprehend with maternal sympathy some of the ins and outs of her more complex daughter. Alice’s complexity largely re- sulted from a still passionate determina- tion to recognize the reality of no disagree- able facts. She could make believe as well as when she was four, and in essentially the same way ; it was for herself that she built up the assumption that she was still near her girlhood, playing it was so fay in and day out, year after year. The Another who had ‘‘played lady’’ with her "hen she was a baby understood and played on, though Mrs. Whitman was right, the game cut heroff from most of the pleasures of old age ; not only must she not talk about | period (and, poor lady, she had not a good memory for dates nor much presence of mind, so that she lived in pain for the blunders she made and feared to make), but Alice was always dragging her about into new sets, to new cities, in her sleep- less effort to find audiences ignorant of her too victorious career. To make up for all this, Alice was the gentlest and most de- voted of daughters ; she had come into her kingdom in a day when graciousness and not arrogance was the stamp of social suc- cess, and her manners were as little in- fluenced by time as her complexion. It | was astonishing how pretty she was ; and | though she looked like a piece of Dresden | china, there was nothing pinched or trivial "in her style : it surely seemed she might | have been & beautiful woman had she not | chosen the part of a pretty one. But the part of a pretty woman was what she had chosen and played unvaryingly ; there was no doubt about that ; even her accomplish- | ments—and she had some that suggested | the possession of real talents—were all | kept within the prescribed limits ; she I sang her lovely old ballads and did her | | odd charming little recitations all as a | pretty woman—though she was the only | person of her land and time who could recite in a parlor without embarrassing her listeners. There was, you see, a fine con- | sistency in her pose in life, and perhaps | that helped to impress people, some peo- ple, with the notion that it was a pose, and she altogether a work of art. Of course every body marvelled that she had not married, but I always thought it | was an open secret ; belles have been known to pursue a similar course before. This is my theory : Alice really had ambition, an { inborn longing for distinction, for a career, TF only this desire was far from taking a mod- ern mannish form. She was anjinstance of one born out of due season, gnd in the wrong place as well ; France if the eigh- teenth century was her naturdl, rightful field ; marriage in America did not mean a career, and it was altogether likely to mean the end of the only oneshe had fonnd. Without much money, or anything very illustrious in her family background, she had been, and still was, a great| belle (one must keep to a somewhat antiquated phras- eology in talking of Alice); but to be a belle as an American married oman is a feat to be accomplished only under excep- tional circumstances, and in any case there is here a shadow on the type npt at all to Alice’s mind. It is my opinion that, with out ever so stating the case to herself, she regarded marriage in general as a fate suit- able for commonplace women, but demand- ing from her asad surrender. Then, doubt- less, as has happened to other ladies, she had found the lovers who gratified a poetic ambition—cabinet ministers or foreign lords—very prosiac in themselves, and the attractive men painfully prosiac in their circumstances ; so altogether Alice had re- mained a maid until her younger and gen- erally less successful rivals called her an old maid. Of course she had never asked herself what she would do when she was old, outwardly, really old ; she would not have been Alice had she ever faced an odious question like that ; but still— These ladies did not talk of the warfare of the afternoon, but Mrs. Andrews did note that Emma, Mrs. Whitman, was get- ting fatter than ever, and said she was lazy not to take more exe:<ise ; whereupon Alice replied, with a smile, that her mother was unjust, for Emma was walking herself to death in vain. “If ever this net looks fit to be seen on her,”’ she added, rolling up the shining thing and sticking her needle through it. “I’11 have to go over and do her hair for her myself:”’ And, indeed, it was some such form that her revenges usually took ; she put her superior taste and skill at the other wom- an’s service, and was content that they were superior. | Fenton and Merrill were old friends and great friends, and, as you may have guess- ed, contrasted types. Fenton was a mod- ern business-man, college-bred, and said to conceal some scholarly haps Merrill was older ; he had been in business, but had long ago retired, and the knowing knew him to be a ‘‘self-made’’ man. Fen- ton said that Merrill’s correct | English be- trayed his lack of early advantages. Mer- rill was always correct, but he was singu- larly inoffensive about it. Two days after his decision toleave the Cape, Merrill paid a parting call on Miss Andrews. . Fenton accompanied him, his solicitude for Merril! giving him, despite himself, a touch of hoth the watch-dog and the nursey-maid. They found the ladies again entertaining guests on the piazza ; this time it was a boy and a girl who considered themselves the only ‘‘cottagers’” young enough for love-making ; the rest of the party looked upon them as children who could know nothing: really about such matters. “‘Going away ?”’ said Alice to Merrill, graciously sorrowful. “Why, I counted on you particularly to help me with my celebration—for the Fourth.” she ex- plained. ‘‘Heavens, Miss Alice, you are not going to celebrate down here, are you? Ifere where we thought we’d gotten away from all that.” This in a well-gotten-up bored manner from the boy. : ‘‘All what?’ inquired Alice, softly, attentively. But at the same time the girl was saying : 2 “I hear the villagers are going to do things. I think we ought to get rid of that dreadful day down here. Don’t you, Mr. Fenton ?”’ ‘Well, the natives have some rights that even summer visitors are bound to respect, I guess.” ‘“The natives are Americans,” put in Alice. Her manner was a little odd, and her statement seemed to strike the others as irrelevant. **Much good may it do ‘em!’ said Fen- ton. ‘It don’t seem to me a thing to celebrate these days.” “The way Americans are looked upon abroad, and the kinds you do see—’’ the girl began. She had just come home from a tour on the Continent. “Yes, yes, of course,” Merrill interrupted (he who never interrupted) ; ‘‘that all may be ; there are things at home worse than that.”’ Alice had risen after her last sentence, and devoted some close attention to train- ing a vine in the way it should £0 ; now she: turned—‘‘turned on $hem,!’ to be ac- curate—a new Alice, her dark eyes bril- liant, one hand catching back the white flummery of her skirts as if to draw further away from the company, the other pressed against her breast. ‘‘Don’t,”” she cried to Merrill, like one hurt—*‘don’t you too begin crying down my country. I can’t bear it—every one all indifference and superciliousness, and not even grieved that we have such grave faults. Oh, I've heard the like before ; I hear it more and more ; but now for you all, you men, not to want to celebrate the Fourth, to think of nothing but the dust and noise—"’ "Well, it is mainly dust and noise, now isn't it, Miss Alice?” said the hoy, praiseworthily trying as a man of the world to bring back the ordinary languor of social intercourse. ‘Is it for you?’ said Alice. *‘It has meant more than that to many a man in your family. Your uncle Harry Seabright died for this country, I remember’’—she paused with a little gasp ; then, flushing and paling, she caught her breath and went on In a stronger tone: ‘‘yes I remem- ber when his body was brought home to your grandmother. © He was just a boy, ~and the best and hright- est in his class, and he died in tle, and his mother said she was a proud woman to give such a son to the Union. And you can’t he bothered to celebrate your country’s birthday ! I remember the | war—it makes a great difference—'? “Of '76? whispered the girl to Fen- ton. He gave no sign of hearing. Alice did ; she stopped and turned to her, and that girl grew quite pale, but it was most quietly that Alice said : “My child, it is my logic and not my history that is at fault if I seem to confuse the war that made us with the war that saved us. But if you had ever lived through any time when rivers of blood and tears were flowing for America, you’d feel diffefently, or I misread your nature. Whe you've felt all the land throbbing with. love and agony—when President Lincoln died—" Alice stopped short, and the tears began to roll down her cheeks, while she stood motionless and strong, waiting to regain control of her voice. Merrill, sitting as usual on the steps, rose to his feet and took off his hat—a figure a little funny if you had the heart to find it so, ib its vague, undefined expression of reveyence, 4 J | 1 { RR bat- | Wy, Then suddenly Alice's .countenance changed. She whipped from her belt a bit asob, she choked out : ‘I didn’t know I could re—remember it all so,”” and she swiftly fled into the house. “God bless her !”” murmured Merrill. “A child gets all the poetry out of a time like that—the passionate, patriotic side of things. If she’d been older—’’Fenton, in his excited anxiety to do what he could for lish. He was not allowed to finish his speech. For the second time Merrill in- terrupted. “‘T was older,’’ he said, ‘‘old enough to get to the front before it was over, and I think the poetry and the passionate patriot- ism was the biggest part, after all—on both sides, maybe ;and it was our side saved the country forall of us, and I’m right glad to have the sense of it all brought back to me again. Miss Alice has carried the meeting, Mrs. Andrews.” (Excite- ment had altered his diction too, you see.) Mrs. Andrews had sat almost motionless through the whole scene ; now she turned on one and another guest the same blank stricken gaze she had fixed before on Alice; she was unnaturally pale. Appealed to directly, she arose, and her tragic expres- sion made the movement a dismissal. “You tell Miss Alice I'm going to fire off pounds of crackers under her window,”’ said the boy, heartily, asa farewell. He was only going hecause the others were too much occupied with some fresh emotions of his own for external observation ; the others, less blind, could not manage their escape with so good a grace, and they made their farewells, and left their stricken hostess quite as if some one lay dead in the house. When the two men were left alone, Fen- ton began ; “Well, Merrill, what you don’t know about women would make a Sunday paper, wouldn’t it? When I think of that little Joan of Arc this afternoon it makes me kinda sick to look at you.”’ “Don’t talk about it now, James. Wait, ’’ said the unresentful Merrill. That evening, as the twilight was deep- ening into dark, Merrill was wandering about the rocks below the Andrews cot- tage ; turning the corner of a ledge, he saw a little aim white figure seated a few yards away ;it was Alice—Alice out in the dark, alone with the sea and the evening star and the rising night. Poor pretty woman and heroine ! her soul had taken her unawares, and upset her and her play- things! Merrill, in as dovelike a voice as was possible, greeted her. ‘Miss Alice, don’t be startled ; I'm so glad to find you.” But Alice had risen, and was turning toward the house with only a very slight and half-inaudible response. Merrill sprang close to her. ‘Alice, darling, forgive me ; but, Alice, give me the right to say it.’ He caught the small hand that held her silken shawl about her. ‘‘Alice, be my wife,”” and some way Alice was in his arms and sniffling a little on his shoulder. “*God bless you, the big heart of you !”’ murmured Merrill. and he kissed her—as best he could, for her head she would not lift. From her refuge she spoke: “I'm all a fright with crying, they excited me so this afternoon. When you remember things back when you were very little, they are so vivid !”’ Then Merrill managed to lift her head and play his part properly. It was a fer- vent and tender scene, was the love-making of these middle-aged people, and I have my own notions as to how much its warmth rowed to the afternoon’s patriotic excite- ment. The correlation of forces is a fine subject for psychological investigation. When Alice next appeared among her neighbors it was as Merrill's betrothed, and the women all agreed that this certain- ly made things easier for her. By Viola Rosehoro, in Harper's Bazar. The Washington Monument. On the east bank of the Potomac, and in the western section of the Mall, which ex- tends through the city of Washington, D. C., overtowering the tallest buildings, sur- rounded by walks, driveways, and beds of pretty flowers, making it inviting as well as convenient to the visitor, stands out in bold review, the subject of this article, The ‘Washington Monument. The construction of this large statue of masonry, the largest in the world, was be- gun, long before the conflict between the north and south took place to divide the country, which the one whom its purpose is to commeinorate, struggled so valiantly to free. The materials used in building this enormous structure, consists of gran- ite and marble shipped from all the States in the Union, also some from foreign countries ; and many orders, societies, and lodges contributed blocks of granite, some of which are carved in artistic designs with the emblem of the donor, to be built in as the work progressed. On the fourth day of July, 1848, the cor- ner stone was placed. On December 6th, 1884, the cap stone was set, and on Feb- ruary 22nd, 1885, the Washington Monu- ment was inaugurated. This huge mass of marble, looming up into the sky to its ex- treme height of 555 feet, weighing 81,120 tons and costing, when completed, $1,187,- 710.00, is provided with an elevator and stairs to enable persons to reach the top platform, where windows allow an excel- lent view of the surrounding country. The door at the hase is open and the elevator runs for the accommodation of visitors from 9 o’clock a. m. until 5 o'clock p. m. It takes the elevator fifteen minutes to make the journey fiom the bottom to the top and fifteen minutes to descend again, making the time for leaving the door on the hour and half hour. The limit to the load that the car takes up with it at each trip is 30 people, and on days when an un- ! usual number of visitors are on hand to make the ascent to the top of the monu- ment, they are formed in a line and the first come first served rule is enforced by a I uniformed officer, who is stationed at the | door to answer questions, keep each visitor | in his proper place, and avoid mistakes and confusion. The writer remembers on one occasion, while awaiting his turn for a position in the elevator to make the trip, of a rustic Virginian arriviug at the door and nervous- ly asking the officer if he had any objec- tions to him walking the stairs to the top, ‘‘help yourself,” says the guide, and away the old gentleman started for his short (?) walk to the top. We did not remain to learn whether he ever reached his destina- tion or not, but as we descended in the elevator one half hour later we met our Virginia friend resting himself against the walls about one half the distance to the top. hs SIBYL. ——When a girl is 16 she thinks most about a man’s hair and eyes ; when she’s 20 she thinks most about his clothes ; when she's 30 she thinks most about his bank account. of muslin, and burying her face in it with | the situation, had lapsed into simple Eng- 7 | | | assist, and the nature of the operation was M’Donald’s Mighty Yawn. It Locked His Jaws Wide Open and It Took a Doctor a Day to Unlock Them. i C. B. McDonald, a well-to-do business man of West Carthage, N. J., is just recovering from the effects of a yawn which he yawned on Wednesday of last week. Mr. McDonald is a light sleeper and an early riser, but on the morning in question he woke up at 3 o’clock, about two hours too early. He rolled over twice, guessed at the time, and then stretched himself and opened his mouth for a mighty yawn. The next in- stant there was a crack that frightened him, and he tried to shut his mouth and | couldn’t. He didn’t suffer any pain, but | his jaw was locked open and was as im- | movable as a rock. He tried to call for help, but found he could only gurgle, and when he did that his throat filled up with saliva and he was in danger of choking to death. Mr. McDonald’s wife was away. He jumped up and ran to the room of his housekeeper and frightened her nearly to death with his wide-open mouth and his display of teeth. She thought he had gone crazy, and his frantic efforts to tell her what had happened only made her certain of it. Mr. McDonald finally made her un- derstand that he wanted a doctor. She ran out of the room and across the street to the house of Dr. F. W. Bruce, and woke him up. The doctor went back with her. Mr. McDonald was sitting in a chair, his mouth still wide cpen. He grunted out an unintelligible explanation. The doctor examined him and found the jaw bone on the left side had slipped out of its socket. The doctor went at it gently at first, and then with all his strength, but he couldn’t hudge the jaw. He tried at intervals for a day without any success. The muscles were as tightly set as the jaw. Finally the doctor thought of the muscu- lar relaxation that follows the administra- tion of ether, and he decided to try the patient. Dr. S. L. Merrill was called in to explained to Mr. McDonald. He nodded his head in assent. Ether was sent for and was administered. It looked for a time even then as if the experiment would be a failure. But after a half hour the drug had its effect, and the jaw was put back into place. Mr. McDonatd has given up the practice of yawning, and so has everybody else in Carthage and West Car- thage. Seemed Dead, But Lived. A Woman Says She Heard Arrangements for Her Own Funeral. Revived While the Undertaker Was Measuring Her. According to a story told by relatives of Mrs. Julia Flinn, of 1809 Lincoln street, Wilmington, Del., she has undergone an experience which has befallen but few per- sons. Six weeks ago Mrs. Flinn was taken sick with the grip and other symptoms devel- oped which puzzled the physicians and caused the family great alarm. The pa- tient lay in a comatose state for days at a time, accepting nourishment in limited quantities. Part of this nourishment was given through a glass tube which had to be inserted in her mouth. Her condition was not considered alarm- ing by her physicians, Drs. Chandler and Palmer, until one evening about a week ago. About this time the family was gath- ered at the bedside waiting for Mrs. Flinn to show some signs of regaining conscious- ness, when suddenly her sister happened to place a hand upon her forehead and, re- coiling from its cold touch, burst into a scream, saying that her sister was dead. As neither of the regular physicians was at hand another doctor was sent for, and upon examining the body said Mrs. Flinn was probably dead. Mrs. Flinn lay apparently lifeless ; her flesh was cold and the pulsations of her heart, as far as the physician was able to ascertain, had ceased. She was finally given up for dead. The next day an undertaker came to take the measurements of the body, and while he was thus engaged the supposed corpse showed slight signs of life. Soon she open- ed her eyes and looked about the room while the family rushed to the bedside. Mrs. Flinn said she had been in a trance and had overheard all that had been said about her, even the details regarding the arrangements for the funeral. The case has puzzled the physicians. The Arkansas Traveler. The other day a tall, gaunt stranger from Arkansas cornered Opie Read at the Chicago Press Club, says the Zimes-Herald. He began fishing about in his pockets. “Got a letter of introduction to you hyerabouts, some’ere,’’ he said. ‘‘Had the darndest time findin’ you,” he continued. ‘‘Got into town yesterday afternoon and last night I started out to look you up. I thought probably, the folks at the telegraph office would know you but they didn’t. And the hotel folks didn’t know you nuther. Then I went to a newspaper shop and they sent me over here.”’ By this time the visitor had found the missing letter of introduction. It was written with a lead pencil in a school boy’s hand and the spelling was entirely phonet- ic. Opie scrutinized the signature closely. “John Scruggins,”” he said, musingly. “John Secruggins. I don’t recall Mr. Seruggins.”’ “That's my boy,” said the visitor, proudly. ‘‘He’s been to school in Little Rock all winter, and so when I got ready a while ago to come to Chicago I told him to | write me a letter of introduction to you, and he did it. What's the matter with | the letter ? Ain’t it writ all right ?*’ “Oh, yes ; it’s all right,’’ said the novel- | ist. And it was, for the man from Arkan- | sas spent a pleasant afternoon at the club. New York city now contains 360 | square miles. It is twice as large as the | District of Columbia, and about one-fourth | | of the area of the State of Rhode Island. The city, it will be perceived, is propor- tionately as big in territory asin popula- | tion. The management of this great munie- | ipality is the most serious undertaking which has yet been ventured upon by the people of this continent. ——A banker just returned from a trip | over Texas railroads says there will be at least an 18,000,000 bushel wheat crop, | with plenty to sell. It is all shocked now. | Oats are being harvested and corn is in | tassel and plenty of it. Cotton is about | six inches high, but should be at least a | foot higher. | A wonderful natural soap has been discovered in some parts of California, and | it has only to be taken from the ground to be ready for the market. It is pronounced superior to the manufactured article. | v FOR AND ABOUT WOMEN. Mrs. Eliza D. Stewart, who organized the | first woman’s temperance union in the | west, t, celebrated her 8lst birthday at Springfield, O., recently. ‘‘Mother Stew- art,” as'she is called, organized the first union at\Osborn, 0., with 100 members, in 1873. Since then up to the recent years, she has employed her entire time in active crusade work. Tailor-made costumes have a much short- er coat than those worn last year, and are more closely fitted to the figure, so it is an easy matter to bring a last season’s jacket up to date. The following exercise is said tobe ex- cellent for correcting and straightening curved shoulders : Take a perfectly erect position. Place the heels together and the toes at an angle of 45 degrees, drop the arms at the side inflating and raising the chest to the full capacity, muscularly, keeping the chin well drawn in and the crown of the head feeling as if it were at- tached to a cord suspended to the ceiling above. Slowly rise to the balls of the feet to the greatest possible height, thereby ex- ercising all the muscles of the legs and body, and then drop once more into® the standing position without swaying the body backward out of the upright, straight, line. Repeat the exercise, standing -flrst on one foot and then on the other. It is remarkable what a straightening out power it has upon round shoulders and crooked backs, and one will be surprised to note how soon the lungs begin to show the ef- fect of such expansive developement. In arranging flowers the vase should be considered an accessory to its contents. One of clear glass is lovely if the flower stems within are decorative. Pale blue and deep green act as foils to pink or white posies, while the rich purple of violets is most effective against china blue. Of course, only one sort of flower is used in the one vase, and this may be loosely massed so as to look unstudied, as if grow- ing. Again, it should go without saying that tall branches should be relegated to high jars, and the short-stemmed species to low, shallow howls. Neither should the vase ever be so ornate as to attract the attention from what it holds any more than a frame should lure the eyes from a picture. French gray is one of this season’s most swagger shades, but at the same time it is quite trying to many complexions. Pink accessories or a soft pink vest will very ofter obviate this difficulty, for either a fair or dark woman. Yokes in front are coming more and more into vogue for shirt waists, either formed of tucks or plain pointed ones. The sleeves are generally a modified leg: o’-mut- ton, with little or no fullness below the elbow, the entire sleeve being greatly re- duced in size. The wearing of these now almost indispensible adjuncts to a woman’s summer wardrobe has ceased to be a fad, and their usefulness and undeniable com- fort has ordained that a complete summer outfit shall have at least a half-dozen in linens, wash-silks, dimity or lawn. Never were sleeves so varied as to cut and trimming. For a woman with a slender arm the wrinkled one with head- ings or cordings running up the centre of the top, while a puff above, is universally becoming, while her plumper sister can adopt the sheath sleeve, with three tiny ruffles at the top, and feel she will look well and yet have something new and stylish. Most of the French models have an inside and outside seam, and scarcely two have sleeves alike. A pretty sleeve for thin material is finely tucked from wrist to several inches above the elbow. The puff is tucked or accor- dian pleated, and the bottom of the sleeve cut long enough to form a frill over the hand. If your dentist is honest—the most of them are—he will tell you that if people would only exercise ordinary care they would materially reduce his income and that of others in the same profession. It is astonishing, how many people, other- wise hard-headed and sensible, will leave their teeth to take care of themselves until violent toothache warns them that some mischief is at work in their mouth, and then they rush to their dentist to find that - the damage is very extensive and will take both time and money to set right. As a matter of fact, the dentist should be visited about once every three months. In this way the teeth can be kept in good condi- . . | tion, because the dentist is able to detect the first sign or trouble and may take measures to prevent its going too far. It should be remembered that when a tooth begins to decay it not only effects it- self but the teeth that are next to it, and it also effects the breath in the most un- pleasant manner. so that you become a source of great annoyance to your neigh- bors. It also causes indigestion, as unless the food can be properly masticated you cannot hope for good health, and where there is pain in eating the food is swallow- ed only half reduced to the proper consis- tency that it should be. The best way to prevent this decay is to see that no food is allowed to lodge between the teeth. You should not only brush vour teeth thrice a day, but after each meal, and also use more than one tooth brush. You should have three of these ; one should be rather hard and another should be rather soft, while the third should be small and round, | with a curve in the handle, so as to get in- to every corner of the mouth. Another point not to be forgotten is that | water used in washing teeth must always be tepid and never quite cold, and you must rinse your mouth with the same. A drop or two of tincture or myrrh can be used in this water. The proper way to clean the teeth is to brush them from the gums to the crown of the tooth ; in this way the particles of food that are lodged between the teeth will be dislodged. If the teeth are only brushed lengthwise, as is generally, the case, the food instead of being brushed out, will be more firmly lodged than ever. You should keep a skein of dental silk always beside you to pass between the teeth and clean them ef- fectively from anything that has gotten be- tween them which the tooth brush cannot reach. A delightful summer frock of pink pique has collar and belt of white moire ribbon and changeable louisine silk — a J Touches of black are ultra sty.ash for trimming frocks of mousseline or organdies. Narrow black satin or velvet ribbon and Valenciennes laces are very chic. |
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers