Ballou's Monthly Magazine, Vol. XXVII, No. 1 — page 44: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

AS Scarlet Lilies. Patty regarded this plan with favor, and had a project of her own. “We'll heat the brick oven in the back kitchen, and do our baking in it. You don’t know how much better the turkey will be, baked in that oven.” “But, Patty, it will take an ocean of wood to heat it.” “QO, there’s plenty of dead wood lying around that had better be out of the way,” Patty said, and clung to her plan so persistent- ly that I told her to do as she liked. So she impressed Will into the service, and with a long-handled hoe and asuperannuated broom he was set to clean the oven. I was making cake in the kitchen, and had heard the scraping and shovelling going on fir ten minutes or more, when Will came to the door saying: “Tu, can you bear a little more and not be frizitened ?” “} don’t think anything would startle me much now,” I replied, half guessing at his meaning. : “Come, then, and see what we’ve found.” I followed him into the empty, desolate reom which had been the scene of the strange phenomena. There, lying upon a heap of ashes, I saw some pale, disjointed bones—human bones— small and delicate—exhumed at last from their long resting-place. “Tt is the skeleton of a woman,” said Charlie, lifting up the bones of the hand. “And see here, Lu!” It was a plain gold ring that could only have fitted a lady’s finger. That night the remains were quietly buried under a great elin in the pasture. Patty could never understand why I had so suddenly changed my mind, and deter- mined to have the cooking done by the stove. I had to put up with some sharp innuendoes, but I did not mind them. After this discovery the midnight noises ceased, and for the six weeks that we re- mained there was no disturbance. During this time we made cautious inquiries in the neighborhood, and a weird, interesting story, but too horrible to repeat, came to us from the lips of an old crone who had outlived her generation—a story of betrayed love, and cruel murder, whose details may as well be spared. The law never laid hands on the murderer ; though he went down to his grave attended by dark suspicions. And now, after the lanse of half a century, the ashes of the victim testified to his guilt. SS SCARLET LILIES. BY MARIA L. POOL. Bright on the snow-glare chime the stars— The ghosts of the summer gone; Still lies the earth in a frozen dream, Waiting another dawn. Cold is the field of lilies now, As the lips that blessed me there— As the face that smiled in the dusky light In the frame of its rare gold hair. O, face of my love, my light, my life! Come back in this wintry night, And give to my yearning heart one throb Of its olden, deep delight! Let me dream of the lilies’ scarlet flush in that neadow of summery green— Of the odorous airs from the piny wood, Breathed over that twilight seene. O, smile on me once, though in dreams it be, From eves that are always mine; Hold to my pallid lips love’s draught Of crimson, immortal wine. comiciooks.,. com