W———n ROBINS AND HAMMERS she said more. He was just putting on his hat to go to his work when she stopped hiw, “Father ought to know it. said, “1 John going to get married inthe fall, broke 8 pose J she you ain't 1 and | “You don't mean it off 7” “No, I hav'ut br you've Ke it off, he all abut think father hop: some dy it’ right, that's all I can I tell you this for 1 pto know.” It was easy Lo vervous, distressed father in his Sy it, you not so won dermeunt and conjecturing, however, He lingered, and talked and question- ed, but Lois would say no more than . . \. he had said, and he went off to work ? ds in an anxious bewilderment He had aughter's prospects with the far He had ¥ aid a good deal about the new house, ial about heen very confiden his d mer whom he was helping Man Was, and how likely the Mo day he said nothing, and when he } old He young came home looked very and de ected : awial sink ny Falte bh is saw it with an it she never A s 1 5 1 fs MAantic secmeda corner other house “Yes, sa Then she ran up stairs, threw her i id Lois, with herself cried bitterly. She Still, on ed, and could pot help it. strangely , she was very far from givin: enough up all hope. She had never believed more firmly in her life that the new house would be finished and she and Jy ha live in ming to work and earn some some furniture ; it some day. dresses and John would come back and be all right. nature there was in her a capability of fine concentration of purpose, which she might not use more than | once in her life, perhaps, but which would work wonders then. Whether it would work wonders with a practi- | cal, ature like John's, remained bier subtle fineness of strength wasin a near enough plane to admit of any | strifiggle. She had not a doubt about it. Joba! loved her, and by-and-by, when she | and had earned enough of money, Wi her clothes and they would be married, and penters would finish the new house, Her greatest present distress was her father’s dejection and her not see. ing John Sunday nights, and made the best of that. that she did not poor John's possible but she was so engaged in against ber own heart for his bappi ness that she did not think of consideration, 80 she got the district school to teach snd passed the summer that way | instgad of making edging and listen. ing to the carpenter's hammers. as well andes; She was pretty | then it would In spite of her yielding | unimaginative, evenly resolute | to be | seen. Some might have questioned if | were not bougit, her furniture, the car- she | It was odd worry much over unhappiness ; acting | hat The | schoo was half a mile from her home | Her fos . . | night, never faltering. | face got a strained, earnest look on it, { but never a hopeless one, ly known! but he op aver in Puwiet village, If she was in there bi ad o the sl never came near Lois. { his th le | secre tly that nob why knew, i to work on week luys and to me ting Lon Sundays steadily and just as asual. waghts, kept her He went He never alluded to Lis, or his bro- « uvufinished i le nesa his mother with, “I don’t want to hear a mather ; may | word about this, you stand it first as last.” She never mentioned the matter to him afterward, though she got a from talking over deal of comfort il her on the nelghbors She was not shi off. Arms; she noe amongst » whole, suid, that the hroken sl I Hs a real pretiy little sorry, match was nothing again y th apd on ge girl too, she HEs8s 44 ways thought John ter, Then he al He whic! 3 dred furniture, Sl she thought, and one bus twenty-five her ie au. ticipated a She was as innocent the outfit from that. as a child about cost of { Then John would things, come back to her, | pretiy If John | worked on in | and | 50) rood here's a note for vou, if | [ and read it, | | was out of Come | about sumptuous house keeping | bed an’ sobbed till 1 thought the LL | TY { and the taps of the hammers on the | new honse would chime in with the { songs of the robins agaio. Lois was thinking she should go over to the village to bay her what day { dresses and how she should send a lit | tle note to Joho,when one day shortly | chi “Mr Elliot," she said, trembling, you'll please read it when you get home.” Then Lesaw it was Lois, “How do you do?” said he, stiffly, | i i and took the note and went on, he it under the When he got home holding on the kitchen shelf, the long to read it opened it | Hight when his mother It did not . It was only» Will yon pleas | a littie while room take JOHN tO my h shit 7 Wong “Dean over use to-morm wailil lu see something. you | it i Los, | in if it | supper was ready, | folded the rote then, put He his pocket, and asked his mother The next evening he was { | for moeeti about gett i brushed his ¢ g ready oat and b 4 dhs bo ols 80 that his mother | punctiliovsly, only went } we afterward It he had only known how L th th g for him; loubtful if he wee. The 8a slnLe ght oul sob. she'd Quah How oie sae ( kill herself, ain't anything to her. 1 : ¥ Lice down el wh id? “On Mis” EL says I. tL aud she put up ber poor little thin arms MY: she, | round my neck an’ cried harder, | after her school closed, ber father was | brought home with broken { That settled the matter, the a arm. note was written, and the be Lois school money paid the bill, land b ought food for herself and father, | She nursed her father till and then she work remained silent when the robins | gan tossing. | the rent and doctor's he was took began anew, about again, her school and | She : * | wore her poor little shoes out at the | toes ; went without everything in the winter she went without gloves. She went past | the wild roses again, then the golden. the red drifis, : rod and asters, then the maple boughs, then Now The dresses i not | carpenters’ hammer’s | I knew as well's I wanted to. | you'd go over there, and | i ap i She | “w “18 says I, ” ‘Lois,’ it anything | about John “Oh, says she h, Mis’ Elliot! again. “‘Do you waut to see him “She didu’t say anything, only held me tighter and cried harder ; I wish think | to I wa'n't John: 1 It's I'll own {you'd ought to. accordin’ | what you profess jest pleascd with the idea of it at first; girl, an’ she's "bout teach did but slic’: 9» real good seemed real smart lately in’ school. An’ she make re : [think so much of your sister Mary, wrapped her the way she looked. shawl round her little red fingers and [anything of that kind on her mind, | | | she looked jest like her. Mary dido’t hev bot I declare I poor child, I'm thaukful to say ; | can't bear to think of it.” back | | and forth between her home and the | schoolhouse, with her pretty, endar- | | ing, eager face, till spring came again A few weeks after her school closed, | | John Eliott, coming home from the | [shop at dusk one Baturday night, met | a girl ou the covered bridge just be. | fore he got to his home. She had been and she bad to keep the house tidy | { standing motionless at the farther en. and get meals for her father, besides | trance (ill she had seen him enter at | teachipg, #0 she had to work hard, | Back and forth she went, passing first toward him rapidly. then she had walked forward She ot! er; | » extended | Mrs. Elliot broke down and cried. John said nothing, but rose and went away from the table, leaving his sup per unfinished. Even then he could not bring himself to go and see Lois that night, he had to wait till the next, but he went then. It was hardly dark. Lois was ly. ing on the settee in the sittingroom when he came in without knocking. “Lois !" “Oh, John !" “How do you do to-night, Lows? I thaswild-roses and then the golden rod | her hand, with something white ia it, dida’t know you were sick till mothe on the country road worming and Ld ! when she reached him, of ! er told me last night,” {sorry enough I couldn't now.” She shook all over, and | put | ny | I. | jest | but | “I'm better. Oh, John!” He pulled a chair up beside her { then, and sat down, “See here, Lois, | read your note you gave me, you [ couldn't bring my- after all that had hap tell the truth. I'm know; But self Loc pened, ne, Lo you “I all right, Jobin ; pever mind.” “Now, Lois, what has all the trou » been about “What trou ble “The of it the first, What made you do the way you did . RY ’ whole from and put off getting married.” iy n't make me tell you, John.” I Yes, I'm going to make you. know you're sick, and it seems cruel | to bother you, but it's the only way. It ain't in me to go and pretend all's eve ry- | right when it ain't, I can do thing else for you but that, can’t do that if it's to save your You've got to be me tell me) John, if I do, will you promise me that you won't ever tell any and 1 life and open with solemn, body else? “You I'H promise.” “Well, I thought it right wm if 1 got fall n't have wasnt d warried g hardly, ing by vy that I dic anythin The frankvess of the Ameri young woman has in it, on the thresh { old, a certain bewilderment and even an {embarrassment for the British male | person, especially if his collars be too | stiffly starched. She ut'er an apparent absence of self-conscious- ness ; her mental equipoise is so renely stable ; her good | if one may use the term, is so | that he cannot see his way easily to | the solution of the problem, I assume { him to be a gentleman, so that his ine tuition deters him from 3 misconce p | tion of the phenomena that confront him, She flirts, he finds ; she is an adept |in flirtation, but it is a flirtation “from the teeth outwards,” to use Cariyle’s phrase, and he is fain to own | to bimself, like the fox<huationg farmer who ‘ried nosuccessfully to get drunk lon the claret. that he » emed “to get no forrader.” Bat, although the citadel of the fort seems to him strangely impregnable because of the garrison, | have been told by heroi persons who have ventured has 80 se fellow ship, natural on whom fortune favors, it will terminate honorable siege by a gracefuly capi tulation. Human nature is human nature all the world over and there is no greater error than the provalent virtue of America married couples, That there is too much of hotel life for American families I concede, and [ am fully conscious of the system, the higher domestic virtues failed to discover. It is not easy the companion and friend of a man— as the participator in his aspirations, his troubles, his studies, his higher life-~becsuse her conditions release her from duty of devising the details of a dinper, from the irritation of { demionincul domestics, from the drud. | gery of checking the grooer’s passbook and the sad realization that all bakers | are liars and mostly robbers as well, “Archibald Forbers in Souvenirs of Some Continents, one among | us that domesticity is not a leading | but that it entails any impairmeat of | I have | to! see how a woman is deteriorated as CATT, —AT THE IRR EP CENTRE DEWUD Job Office And Have YourJob Work ) WITh BISPATEH. 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