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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Exeter Advocate, 1895-6-7, Page 6CONN' THRO' THE RYE. BY HELEN •13. WEATHERS, • (CONTIn USD.) SUMMER. CHAPTER 1. I am eighteen years old. It sounds a good deal, does it not? It seems Only yes- terday that I )14`aS quite little, scrambling abolat be short frooks and leaviug bits of the same on every veiling, hedgaand gate the place contains: now a I'm in "tails," reel downright tails; limited, it is true, as to length and width, bun still tails which come in usefol when I want to snub Dorley or the boys; but on the other hand, hamper me sadly when some forlorn TO111- mutt of my aotive youth prompts me to Settle the trees, or go birdas-nesting. On the svhole,I am sorf.7 to have reached that bread, fiat tableland or grown -upness that is so easy to ascend, but can be stepped down from never again. If one's young days inight only be pushed further, if we might be given thirty years of growing instead of sixteeu,surely the forty beyond, that ate allotted as the period. of nian's existence, amnia be enough for us to be grown-tm, and steady, and sad in. I hate to ()art with my merry inseuelant young years. I dread to let them go, and feel the old tastes and loves slipping away from me, and the new fancies and pur- suits taking their place. I am sorry that I shall never grow any more—never mea- sure my back against the schoolroom wall to see If my heed is any nearer the notch that in.arks Jack's height—never look anxiously in the glass to see if it brings me loss ugliness as he brings more hushes (for at eighteen one is able to form a pretty tolerable estimate of what one is going to be like for the rest of one's days) —never go donkey -riding, or pig -nut hunting, or shirmp-getting, any more— never love bull's eyes, blackberries, and trenele-tarts, With the exceeding love that I knew for them of yore. I can even get pd.— +mi., • • *Won that jaek and I eall ladies' slip- Pers—a frivolous substitute for the grand old name of lotus, of which there are three speoies, and this common, unbeautiful yellow is one. Lotus! What an exquisite name it is! and what exquisite visions it brings up before us! The river is a rare sun-worthipper ; almost all bis newel's are either yellow or gold oolored; look at those handsome irises a yard away: and further down, where be deepens into a nallaie lake, lie more yellow flowers,great, sleepy, languid. lilies, to do lam •honor and deck his breast. It is a relief to look away at the forget-me-nots, with their innocent candid, eyes, that look s 'night into mine, saying as plain as th, y speak Do not forget me!" A beeenehis lifts i e oat of the hedge straight and tall, with its absurd resem. blame to the insect, as though it had alighted freshly on the flowers, •anal been lrozen there retainiug its exquistte colors. The hollyhocks, "emblem of cruelty and pride,' 'stand stiff and stately. I wonder if s-er at night their speckled bells ring °tit t dainty peal. of music teamed in Hollyhock And? Oho reed -mace stand roundatall and we: with their long stacks and olive- nowu spikes, they Look too obstinate to ;hive): and shake; yet a curse lies upon them—for was not one of their number naced in the Victim's hand in direst nookery as a sceptre? Yonder, In the pale - nue blossoms ot the ivy -leaved bell -flower, ie a naughty, little insect which Linna- sus named. Florissinms, from its love of tieeping in flower. He must be a luxuri- vas, dainty little Sybarite and a happy, to se able to choose his couch of red, -white, fink, or blue, at will; while we, poor mor- als, have to seek our dull four -pokers light after night. I pick up my sun -bonnet, put it on, and lean over the stile that lies between me awl. the corn-fieldthat is turning brighter and more golden day by day under the sun's fierce beams. The scarlet poppy - heads, gorgeous vagrants, with their leaves asin stanapiug my foot On "Wh,other you veill ar not, do "No, it does not," he Sans on, Nell; clon't be afreld of feelings lo " Nam you should ' not wo NOW I have bad quite a little last two days, and of emus° come this afternoon to spoil it a e Sett. ftly. •Go Urtin •y la so. the f 7oviel Ndv000t:Ifrly • talk to me sensibt, ,as jack •"Only am not ,Taok," says—" worse look. You would like inc if I were." "1 liko you now, '' I say, enickly; "next to mother, and the rest of them, do not know anyone I like so well. Why can't you be satisfied with that?" "Noll," says the young man, standing before me, straight and tall and fair in the sunlightawith a vexed look in his blue oyes, and restless fingers that tug at his yellow musteche, "what did yon promise me four years ago?" "That when I wee eighteen and six months old I would marry you, if need not seen any one I liked better." " end you are going to break your promise?" "No," say, looking op into his honest face. "Did I not tell you once that I never broke my promises? But you must give Inc time, George; you must not hurry inc. I am not very old yet, you know; and love isn't easy to learn all at once. I wouldn't promise you anything I did not mean to stick to; but if I said to -day that I loved you, and would marry you, it would be wrong, for I do not think I am the least in the world in love with you, do you?" "Ne," he says, with a rueful sigh, "there can't be very ninth doubt on that score!" "So," I say, with alacrity, "I will wait till I am in love with you before we settle it all. Don't you think it would be much pleasanter?" "For you, perhaps," he says; "but I mv own h. et." as freshly crinkled as though they had but, "Do you know," I say diffidently, "that just left Natures' laundry, nod imperious- sometimes I think. you don't go the right ly at sne, saying, "Gather me! gather way to mane me lave you? If you were me!" The oorn-cookle, pride of the liar- to be cross sometimesor—to shake mo— over a gate without feeling any overma,s- vest-fleld, and abomination of the fsomething,rmer, or I don't exactly know what. tering impulse to vault or leap it. I can cries "I am handsome, pick me!" The Perhaps if you made me jealous now, for see Pepper taking an ecstatic roll in the fleld-knautia lifts her insolent head high I a girl hates any one else to have her lover, grass without straightway longing to oast myself down and roll too. The kitchen garden has lost some of its chasm in my eyes, for, thanks to myjseing so old, other affairs than gooseberries and currants oc- cupy my mind, very much against my will. 1 am the eldest daughter at home now, ttua obliged to mind my morals and manners to a maddening extent; or every sin of omission and commision of my brothers and sisters is laid TO my charge, and said to be the Vent of my "example." It is dismal at the Manor House now so many are away. Jack is in London. He Is going to be a barrister, and I call it mean of him for if he had only elect- ed to be a fat gentleman farmer, I could have go e and livou with him in a little house, and been as happy as–Well ! brothers never love their sisters quite as their sis- ters love them. Milly has been. "woo'd an' married an' over a year and a hall, and the fa,xn- ily has not yet done gasping over the mir- aculous eeent yet. How it fell out that papa's unwilling consent was wrung from above the corn, seeming to say, "See how i even if she does not want him herself, you mucn higher a parasite can climb than . known.), her master!" "The pheasant's -eye, or ' I pause. After all 111 18 not easy to in - the flower of Adonis (over which, as the street a young man how to woo you; but story runs, the life -blood of Adonis gush- I am really so anxious to fall in love with ed, staining its white petals crimson, George, and so sorry for him, that I would looks up invitingly; the pansiea, "three take any pains to cultivate the gentle pas - faces under one hood. "as the country -folk sion. call them, from their lowly seat at the e I don't think you. meant that," says roots of the corn, please the eye with their George, with as much scorn as his manly, modest, velvet -eyed beauty. And. since I pleasant voice will borrow; "or if you did, know and love them every one, I dash in I can't follow you. I know there are men among the corn and gather my hands full. g's,- hued, vagabond. cluster . who don't cEtre a rap for a man as long .A. scentless, bri as she is entirely their own but directly he they make; for they are but saucy para- turns up his nose at them they are head sites, that love to creep about and hamper over heels in love with him ; but I never the knees of the strong, beneficent grain, thought you were one of that sort, Nell. as all useless, gaudy things over do about , Now, when a man loves a girl, he doesn't let pimpernel—the only wild flower that like her any the better, I can tell you, far the stalsvart and brave. Alrea,dy the scar - staring at and hankering after this man clan, dispute the poppy's pre-erninen.ce in and that. All her value is gone in his color, has closed its leaves, for it is past eyes if she does not stickto him in thought, three o'clock. I wonder how it always word and deed. Her flirtatious with any knows the time so exactly, when human one else provoke disgust, not love; and she peoples' watches are so often out of gear? makes him feel notso much piqued aa The intolerable heat stops my somewhat , small ,, him; and how she never man away at all, unreasonable speculations, so I hastily re- 1 "And that a man hates to look," I say, but stood up to be married,in a white satin treat to the brook, and there weave my ! slyly "Touch any man's or woman's self - gown and trimmings; and how papa gave flowers into a garland, with many nodding . self-conceit, and theynever forgive you!" her away with an ineffalbe hitch of his grass and. leaf between, idly, carelessly, I "It is not self-conceit," he says,stautly, nose; and how up to the very last mo- for no other reason than that my hands : "it is self respect." ment every one believed that he did. not; are idle and the flowers are pretty play- I "I wish you. were not so honest a man" mean her to be married at all, but intend- things. When I have -finished it, I turn it•I say looking at him wistfully; "perhaps ed to turn the whole affaie into a joke; round and round and =Level whether and how he disappointed us all, as he al- Ophelia's could by any possibility have ways does—are not these things writ in looked any madder? Pour lost Ophelia!— the chronicles of the house of Adair? After so far forgetting himself as to make two people happy, he gave it to be understood in the family that nothing else of the kind would be permitted to take place for another century or so, and that this lapse of authority on his part wasint. to be taken as a precedenabut regarded in "Larded all with sweet flowers Which bewept to the grave did go, With true -love showers. "— whose drowned face comes to us so freshly across the dead centuries, while the echo of her sweet voice singing, "Lord, we know what we Etre, bat we know not what "Did you suspeet me of an unlawful love of Skippy GOO, bld 1" ' he say, laugbing, "Nol 1 did not suspect you of that misplaced tenderness! Do you know, Noll, that I think you are the coldest little thing Inver saw? I don't believe any one watild ever love you." "I am not tender," I say, making, a grianace; "none of us are—we all had that twosome knooked out of us in our yonth; but I Etio tree et • "Are you?" he cries. eagerly. "Then wlion these six months twe 'I shall keep my promise," I say, my heart sinking; "oaly' (reviving), don't make too sure of me, for six months is a long time, and there is no knowing whom I may sec) in. it!" 'lam not afraid," says George,smiling. How happy he looks I "No one ever comes to Silverbridge, and. you never go away, so how can any one see you?" "Don't forget," I say, by way of damp- ening his exhilaration, "that papa will have to be asked." I And for the first time in my life my Par- ents' little prejudices on the subject of marriage commend themselves favorably 130 my oyes. "That doesn't matter," says George, "Mrs. Lovelace Tan away!" "But there wore exceptional circum- stances in that sort of thing to become a habit in the family. They were properly engaged for a long while!" "And why may not you and I be?" , "Because he would never hear of 111 1" I say, looking forward with disin,ay to that dreadful engaged period of "pocking" that I have until now successfully (mull. "Your governor and mine get on splen- didly," says George, in a hopeful voice. "That would surely go for *something?" "That is one of those things no one can understand," I say, shaking my head. "My father has known your father for four years, and they have not quarreled yet! Mr Tempest must have the temper of an angel, or papa has never kicked him because no thought he was so little, and old, and frail!" "Wbieh redounds to Colonel Adair's credit," says George' laughing; "but I have often wonderedhe does not take a turn at me!" "Don't be afraid," I say, nodding "As soon as he knows you are anxious to have him for a father-in-law, he will be good for any amount of that. 18 111 not droll that parents should see things going on under their very noses, and tan be so surprised and disgusted when anything °canes of "I suppose their fathers were before them!" says George; "and sorae day we shall be the same! I say, Nell, what a little duck you. look to be sure!" he says, as, after stooping over the water, I turn round, with my wreath set jauntily on my head. ' ' You have not half admired me yet 1" I say, holding out my dress; "now, do you know wheel am going to do?" "Stay with me" "I am going to walk across the field of corn, and then the field of rye, just as I am, and then -1" "Well, and then?" (TO BE COatrirrono.) if you -were not so good I should like you better." I wonder what it is that George lacks and which holds me back from acknow- ledging him lover and. master? He is the best -bred best -mannered, best -grown man I ever saw; he is likeable true, admirable in every way; and if he does not find favor in my eyes, it is hard to say who will. And yet I feel that I could love—ay, and the light of a comet, a plague or any other well too, when the right man came, but responsible appearance for which there is we may be," lives in our hearts with all I may never -meet my Prince Charming; no accounting. About two years ago Alice our household words and treasures. I al- and as years go by d twcile in a comfort - was formally forgiven, and. invited to stay ways think of Opholia as a slender maiden, able, safe, friendly affection for my yellow - here, with her little son; but the sight of with far -away, dreamy gray eyes, that haired lover yonder. "Perhaps if we had saw Death beckoning to her, in strange begun with "a little aversion" it might have been more hopeful, our exchange of words would have been heartier, brisker. In squabbles there is some heat, and I al- ways think the people who quarrel the most fiercely love each other best; they must have power to move each other, or they would not bandy so many useless words. Long ago I took off my poppy -wreath, and now I am swinging it slowly back- ward and forward. "George," I say, looking at him thoughtfully, "were you ever very wick. ed?" "Nothing," I say; "only to be wicked gives experience. I have heard experience is nice, is it not?" "That depends an the sort a man gets." "Did any one ever jilt you?" I ask. "Have you, ever made love te any one be - fora me?" The young man looks at me with a queer kind of half shame on his face. " And if I had," he asks, "would you mind?" "I should be delighted l' I say quickly. "If you had made love to people, and been thrown overboard, you know, and people had made love to you, you would be so much better qualified to make love to me! I should like to have a lover who had been in love hundreds of times, but considered me the nicest and liked me the best of all! That would be something to be proud of, would it not?" her perfect liberty of speechan action, ancl lovely guise, down among the rushes, the amplitude of her petticoats, the abund- and to whom she went gayly decked with awe of her pin -money, were too much for flowers, as a bride to her bridegroom. I him,and the flag of truce came downwith a run. If the governor could put his wonder if Ophelia had. long hair and whether it was golden or yellow or brown like mine? It ought to h we been yellow —every woman should be fair, every man should be dark in my opinion. I don't think many young women could drown themselves with decency nowadays: than locks are not ample enough unless eked out with pilferings from the impecunious living and helpless dead. And. if they tied any false curls and tails on, or the occa- sion it would somewhat take the edge off thoughts into rhyme, I think he would say: "Oh! while my daughters with me stayed, Would I had whacked them more!" It must be hard to know that they have got safely out of his clutches; and that he ratty have nothing in the future to re- proach himself with on my account, he makes my existence an uncommonly our pity to see the hapless maiden lying in pleasant thing. Sornetmes I feel that I one place and her back hair in another. We must run away, or that it would be better to marry anything than live the life I Adairs axe well off in the respect of head - coverings, rather too well off in fact; for lead. Common sense, however, whispers in hot weatherour abundant manes are no joke and we are inclined to en.vy our more lightly -crowned neighbors who ap- pear at church in chignons that are the most innocent of deceptions and provoke mirth not admiration. Only last Sunday a disastrous casualty occurred to a farmer's wife sitting in the pew exactly before as. Her chignon parted its moorings and sus- pended by a single wisp hung down her back and over our pew bobbing up and down in a horribly acitve manner causing lively fear in our ranks; for in the too probable event of its falling into our midst who amongst us would be found to possess sufficient aplomb to hand it to the denuded lady? I pull off my sun-boonet for no one is likely to see me and the cows yonder will tell no tales; a,nd putting my wreath upon iny head bend over the brook to try and see my own reflection. Close to the hedge thee is a little shallow fenced about with sticks and stones, and in it I see my .face framed in its poppy -wreath and loose veil of brown hair. that a spinster's troubles are but passing ones; but, once married, she must sit down under her misfortunes, and bear them to her life's end. For married folks have their troubles—have they not? just like single ones. Oh! what a black, bitter hour that must be when a woman lifts her eyes, and looking at her husband, sit- ting opposite her, realizes for the first time that she has made a mistake. "Mon," says Madame Scuderi, "should keep their eyes wide open before marriage, and half -shut after. Surely women xnay very safely say the same. I wonder why I have fallen upon the subject of matrimony this afternoon? I am wandering a one through the garden, bright with its late July pomp of geran- iums and verbenas, and across the orchard into the wide, hot field. There is no shade anywhere,but my big snn-bonnet is tipped over my nose, so I may defy sunstroke; and in my mind's hi," as I once heard a man, of more worth than letters, remark, I see a cool, shady, green Tittle chamber of which the ceiling is woven branches, and the carpet of mossy grass, while the walls are made of the stued y brown bodies of the oak and the beech, It is not lar away, but it is shut in so deftly that :a stranger might pass it by close and never see it, though he went through the field of rye that stretches oat to its Ionia white- ly milled sea of light. "After all," I say to myself, as I turn out of the last big field into a cool, shady alley through whicb brook runs, "What does it matter if the governor is troublesome? He met take away any of Giod't gifts fromu', and all the tempers and hats' words in creation could not take the glow out of this 1311131 - met afternoon, or the color ad of the sky; no never!" Thus moralizing, I sit clown by the brook to net for esteems/et before sallying forth into the sun -flooded fields of Vain; end it seexns to answer "Nester!" as it berries along over the came stones, not knowing when it is well off, sighing to lose itself it the wide river., Its babble sounds very pretty, as though it were talk- ing to the fragrant raeadoW-sweet that border% lte Innate tike foam,. ot the yellow Not bad!" I say aloud, "Now, if your nose wore a little longer, and your mouth a little smaller, you wouldn't be an ill- lookixig yoang person, as girls go; but as it is, you are what your amiable papa says—you are the–e" "Prettiest little gni in Christendom," says a mains voice behindnus, making me start so violontiy that 1 nearly topple over into the brook. "Did I not tell you, " I say, 'without turning my head, "that I was tired. to death of the very sight of you and that you were not to come near me for three) whole days?" "The three whole days will be up to- morrow, SelL" "To -morrow is not to -day," I Say turn- ing, round, "Now, I wonder what you 'noted say, if you were folloWed every where by antitesome, teasing shadow, that never left you alone /or a single moment, and the more you told it to go away the sabre It stopped?" "Everybody has a shadow," he sayfe tultiong the l'OBt." "Doeff your shadow make hive to your A CARLETON CO, MIRACLE. RACK TO inwrit AFTER yEuts OF EXTRERE SUFFERING. Yielded to the Advice of a Friend and Obtained Results Throe Doctors Had, ' Failed to Secure. From the Ottawa Journal. Mr, George Argue is one of the beet known farteers in the vicinity of North Gower. Be has passed through an experi- ence as painful as it is remarkable; and his story as told a reporter will perhaps be of value to others. 'I was born in the county of Carleton," said Mr. Argue, and have lived all my life within twenty miles of tho city of Ottawa. Ten years of that time have been years of pain and misery almost beyond endurance. Eleven years ago I contracted a cold which resulted in plemesy and inflammation of the lungs. Other complications then followedand I was confined to my room for five years. The dootor who attended me through that long illness said that the reason I was ur • Not Cents but Sentiment. "Mae has a Sl.triUllA yettog man ," ob- served he girl with the babY smile. "Any young man would be serious my dear, if he had much discourse with Ate, " responded the girl with the Roman nose. • "Good gracious, that last oream soda must have been too much for you. I meant that Mae has a serious admirer, at htst—why, even her wretched little brother has begun to treat her civilly." "Humph; is that all your proof?" "01 course not. Look across at thativase of Roams in her window, will you. This last g,ft, my dear, not a dozen of roses such as the florist selects and he only pays for. Oh, no, when he sends her flowers it is a great dewy bunch of mignonette or a cluster of pansies or lilies of the valley. What do you think of that?" "H'in, the roses cost more." "As if that meant anything with a man, slily! Ho selects the flowers he wants and then asks the price. It's the thought displayed in the selection, that's all, not the cost." "Well,I have noticed that a man thinks more of giving one his seat in a crowded car than of taking one driving in tbe .most expense equipage; I suppose it is the same principle.' "Of course it is. Laura thought Dick didn't really care for her and. was ready to go into a decline about, it, but when I found he had given her the copy of Ras - soles he had carried all through college I just began to save my pennies for a wed- ding present,. And I hadn't tinae to save quite enough before the date was set," she added, meditatively. , "Stuff and nonsense! Why, didn't he buy her a new copy," snappe,d the girn with the Roman nose. The girl with the baby smile:looked pity- ingly at her: "I don't think you know much about men clear," she remarked. "I never said 1 did. Do—do you sup- pose that is why Wesley prefers that horrid blue print of ine he made himself to the lovely photograph by Snapshot?" "Of course it is; any child would know that. The one ho took makes you squint horribly, and I shoal(' Inas:gine from an impartial look at it that you Wore the bearded lady at the circus; it's the senti- ment which makes it beautiful to him. Human nature is a queer thing, my clear; I suppose you never had an old rag doll with crooked eyes and. mangy apparel which you preferred to the wax beauty direet from Paris?" , "Why, yes I did. You surely are a smart girl, Florence; it is really wonder- ful how much you know." "Thank you, dear; show your appreoia- tion of the fact, please,by not mentioning it when any men are present—it sets them so against one." Then you think—" "I think Mao will be one of the early a,utounn brides, that's what I think," gleaned the girl with the baby smile, and I should fed a good deal easier in my mind if jack Bittersweet wool& send me a bunch of old fashioned violets once in a while instead of all those expensive but non committal American beauties." "You don't understand about those things, dear," he says, sadly. "If you cared for me you would wish to be the first girl lever loved. You would grudge those other women having known me before you did." "I wonder what it is to care?" I say, drawing a long tress of hair through my fingers, and looking down on the water flowing at our feet. "If to care for you is to like you very much when you ere m t making love to me, then 1 care for you very ninth indeed!" But George does not answer; he is look- ing straight away over my head at the dis- tant hills, thinking hard and deep, and the misery in his Wile eyes hurts me. I could never bear to secs anything, even a worms, suffer, "George," 1 say, slipping my hand int0 his, "don t fret oboist it; perhaps it will come in time, you krtow, and— "Have you ever seen the mai you could care about?" he asks, stroking my hand gently between his own. "In my dreams, perhaps I saynEtugb- ing. "Where else oould I have met him?" "Yon have never been away from • home," he goes on, "sate to school; and you could not see any one there, But do you know,Nell, sonletimes I have thought tint the reason you don't lote mo is be, cause you have Et fancy for 'Somebody else? A silly notion, is it not?" "'Very!" I say, taking ray hand away* • Antonio Mimeo ante Meal. ...kutouiu Mace° is an impenitent separ- atist, a fanatio of liberty ana of Cubans indepondea co, a, sworn enemy of the Iberian race. Ho was born at Santiago and is 47 years of age, He fought his first battles:according to the Now York Times, during the revolution of Yara in the 00111. pally of Volasquoz. le 1876 be undertook a new campaign and was appointed major general after the battles of Otanaguey and Oriente. When pettee NVOS4 00110111dOd he refused to tate advantage of it and went into exile in januticse In 1879 he tried to cause a new revolu- • tion of the Cubans,but failed and went to live in Panama. Then he engaged in commerce and re- cently was a planter of tobacco in Costa Rion. He is well known in Barcelona by his business relations. The latest import- ant declarations made by him are as fon ,lasvs : The island is led into a formidable re- volution by its political and, economical difficulties and by the taculty which it feels to -day to regulate its own fate. We have undertaken the war only after we were persuaded that the population was wort' out by its enormous contributions. The capital which the Spanish govern- ment has exhausted against the muse of liberty shall become its most mortal en- emy. The experience which I have ace quired in ten years of war makes me pre- serve faith in my prineiples. Cuba shall be free! The Spanish Government cannot smother the insurrection,. This time the country is better proper ed. Moreover, the Cuban has other napes shies than those of the last nye years. He understands that he has ceased to be a minor. Spain. which has not known how to destroy brigandage in the island, will not know how to tame the revolution. Everything in my beautiful aountry con- spires against Spain. rhe workman, the student, the priest, the peasant, woman, the soil, the climate ---everything is, for Spain, a menace of death." eI could hobble around on crutches. able to move about was due to the con trading of the muscles and nerves of my hands andfeet through long confinement to bed. I could hobble around a little on crutches, but was well nigh helpless. At this stage a second doctor was called in who declared my trouble was spinal com- plaint. Notwithstanding medioal advice and treatment, I was sinking lower and lower, and was regarded as incurable. I was now in such a state that I was unable to leave my bed, but determined to find a cure if possible, and sent for one of the most able physicians in Ottawa. I was under his care and treatment for throe years. He blistered my back every throe or four weeks and exerted all .his skill, • but in vain. I was growing weaker and began to think the end could not be Inc off. At this juncture a friend. strongly urged me to try Dr. Williams' Pink Pills, I yielded to his solicitations, and by the time six boxes of pills were used I found • myself getting better. I used in all thirty -- boxes, and they have accomplished what ten years of treatment under physicians failed to do. Thanks to this wonderful medicinal am able to attend to my duties and am as free from disease as any man in ordinary health is expected to be. I still • use Dr. Williams' Pink Pills, and they aro the medicine for me, and so long as I live I shall 1180 110 other. If I had got these pills ten years ago I am satisfied I would not have sufferedas I did,and would have saved seine hundreds of dollars (loci er bills. It is only those who have passed through such a terrible siege as I /save • done who can fully realize tho wonderfu ; merit of Dr. Williams' Pink Pills.' Mr. Ague's experience should convince even the most skeptical that Dr. Williaans' Pink Pills stand Inc in advance of other medicines and are one of the greatest dis- coveries of the age. There is no disease due to poor or watery blood or shattered nerves which will not speedily yield to this treatment and in innumerable cases patients have been restored to health and strength after physicians had pronounced the dreaded word "incurable." Sold by all dealers in naedioine or sent by mail post paid, at 50 cents a box or six boxes for $2.50 by addressing the Dr. Williams' Medicine Co., Brockville, Ont., or Schen- ectady, N. Y. Refuse imitations and do not be persuaded to try something else. • He Was RedleSS. Mamma," said Jack, natty I go out to "No, you must sit still where you ate." • Pause. • Ma, can't I go down in the kitchen?' Yon may not. I want you to sit perfect- ly quiet.• Another. pans°. • "Mamma, mayn't I sit on the floor and play marbles?" "NoW, My dear boy, 1 have told you neice that X Want you to sit just where aro, and be quiet, and I mean eXaots I v atat 1 say." Third parlite. "Ma, maY I—grow?" For Vessels in Distress. Experiments on the feasibility of using pigeons for vessels in distress at long dis- tances from land will be made on a large scale next June. The British admiralty Ms sent 100 English pigeons to the West • Indies, where they will be taken on board the cruiser Blake, now about to retum home, and lot loose, with exact indications of the time and place, at intervals on the passage. At the seine tiine the Paris Petit Journal, which has taken up the matter • since the accident to La Gascogne last winter, will send out a number of French pigeons' on a steamer sailing from St. Namara, to be set free at different times as the vessel draws away from land. This Idea Is Too Prevalent. • Mrs. Bloozin—Why in goodness'Jane, axe you putting so xnuoh coal in the fur- nace? Don't you see you've got five times as much in it as you. need? Jane—Mr. Bloozin told me yesterday, mum, not to waste the coanand I thought mum, that I'd be wastin' it on yor if I didn't use it up as quick as I could, 'cue it wasn't eloin.' no good lyini there'll' the bin, mum. The Port Arthur Massacre. The Port Arthur outburstw as a child- ish frenzy and love of killing. There was no apparent reason for the three day's slaughter. There had been easy victories everywhere, small casualities, and. no op- position in the town. The groat 16 -fort stronghold of China had fallen alter a fer. hours' struggle. There was some provo- cation for the first day's work, for when the 111011 of the Second Regiment Wero ordered by the direct command of Final Marshal Oyama to occupy the town, they saw, on passing over the first bridge, the mutilated heads of their, comrades who had been captured in. a skirmish with the enemy on November 18. Two or three were inuagittg by a string passed through their lips to a sapling by the road side. Further on, attached to the eaves of a house, two more were strung together The soldiers,presumably maddene4 by the ghastly sight lost touch with their offic ers and commenced shooting every living thing they met in the streets. Captain DuBoulay, Colonel Taylor ark' Lieuena,nt O'Brien, and two correspondents, watched this 'firing from a height overlooking the town, from whioh every street and alley lay as a map before them. These gentle- men saw no opposition to the troops, nor were there any shots fired from the houses on Oyonia's soldiers. The French mili- tary attache with the two French corres- pondents were with the Field Marshal some distance in the rear. The unfortun- ate shopkeepers and citizens, standing at their doors, by virtue of Oyananspaelfin proclamations, ready to receive the soldier with expressions of welcome, were ruth- lessly shot down on their very thresholds. Retuvn of the Reticules. Miss App, writing froin Paris, says :— Reticules of very rich, brocade are carried to even the functions, and during Mardi Gras tine these were filled with confetti and lased along the Champs Elysees by the 'belles and many patrons of Paris, who &eve in their well-appointed victories. They are not at all a bad fashion, and might to come in to stay, as where to put the bon-bonniere, the dainty mouchoire, smelling salt or the gold lorgaten has an ways been a question. Now I think it Is simply anal prettily solved by these bro- caded. bags. One in lavender, with heart- sease all over it, X saw on the arm of a dowegcm who was gowned in black velvet and point lace; tied in with 'night Orlin - son,was cateried by a young debutante and still another is in the posseSsion of an Ametican girl, who doclaree it "jolly." This one is Of silver brocade, trimmed With heavy silver law and white satin ribbons, A WELleHNOWN CATHOLIC PRIEST Of Hamilton -Rev. Father John J. Hin- ehey, Pastor of Josoph's Church, Hamilton, Dears Testimony to The Undisputed Worth of Dr. Agnew* Catarrhal Powder. In the person of the Rev. John g. Hinchey of St. Joseph's Church (R. C.), Hamilton, is found one who does the highest credit to the self-sacrificing Work in which he is, engaged. His kindly eart constantly prompts to deeds of love and goodness, and in the city of Hamilton all who know him are ready to bear testi- mony to his high character and active generosity A result of neglect, thinking more of others than himself, he bas been a sufferer from cold in the head and its al- most certain associate, catarrh. Recently he made use of Dr. Agnew's Catarrhal Powder'and has found in it so groat relief that he deems it a pleasure to tell others of the good it has done him. One short puff of the breath through the blower supplied with each bottle of Dr. Agnew's Catarrhal Powder diffuses this powder over the surface of the nasal passages. Painless and delightful to use, it relieves in ten minutes and permanent- ly cures Catarrh, Hay Fever, Colds, Head- ache, Sore Throat, Tonsilitis and Deafness. 60 cents. Sample bottle ancl blower sent on receipt of two 8 cent stamps. S. G. Ditchon, 14 Church St., Toronto. or 18 Months !Unable to Lie Down In Bed --A Toronto Junction Citizen's Awful Experience With Heart Dis- ease. • L. J. Law, Toronto Junction, Ont.: "I consider it my duty to give to the public my experience with Dr. Agnew's Cure for the Heart. I have been sorely troubled with heart disease and unable to lie down in bed for eighteen months owing to smothering spells and palpitation. Each night I would have to be propped up by pillows in order to keep front smothering. After treating with several medical men without benefit, I procured a bottle of the Heart Cure. After taking the.first dose I retired and slept soundly until morning. I used one bottle and have not taken any of the xeinecly for seven weeks, but the heart trouble has not reappeared. I con- sider it the greatest remedy in existence for heart disease." I was Cured of Rheumatism in Twenty- four Hours. I, George English, shipbuilder, have lived in Chatham, N. S., over forty nears. Last spring I took severe pains in my knee, which, combined with swelling,laid no up tor six weeks, during which time I outlined great sufferin 1 saw South American Rhemnatio Cure advertised in Tile Chatham World and procured a bottle. Within twenty-four hours I was ansolute- ly free from rhoutnatism, and haste not been troubled with it since. cc 1 A CURED MAN." Kidney Disease Vanquished by South American Kidney Cure --The Rem- edy Which ReliOVO$ in Six 31ours. Adam Soper, Burk's Falls, Ohta " soffered much pain for Montt s from kid- ney ancl bladdee disease, I received skilled niedical treatment and tried all kinds of medicines to no purpose; in fact, I did not obtain any relief Until South American Iticiney Cure was wed, It seemed to fit my case exactly, giving sue immediate re- lief, I have now used six bottles and can say positively that I a/n, a cured Xnall. I believe one bottles of the remedy will oott- vinee anyone a Its great worth." 1!