Ballou's Monthly Magazine, Vol. XXVII, No. 1 — page 76: what you’re looking at

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

80 disappointment as well as she*was able. She had hardly reached the family sitting-room before her two brothers, Willie and Ned, bounded in, greeting her most boisterously. * You cear fellow! How glad I am to see you!” she exclaimed, drawing little Ned to her, and trying to kiss him. “Quit that!” and the boy pulled rudely away. “Don’t try to come the soft over me. I am too old to be babied any longer.” He looked very dignified with his eleven years’ experience in this vale of sorrows. .. Maggie laughed, though there were tears in her eyes. She expected to see her mother rebuke the lad, but Mrs. Westmore only said: “Neddie has an exalted idea of his own consequence, you perceive. Well, I don’t know why he should be discouraged in it. If he don’t assert his own independence in the world, no one will ever do it for him.” “That is so, ma,’ assented the young hopeful. “Yes,” said the matter-of-fact Helen. “ Of course you are very glad to meet with Willie and Neddie once more, but it isn’t best to be too demonstrative. It looks silly and weak.” Helen seated herself primly in a chair be- side a window, and took up her sewing. “ You can take off your things and leave them on the hall table, Maggie,” she said, never Offering to assist her. Mrs. Westinore had gone on some mission to the kitchen, and so Maggie quietly obeyed, and removed her wrappings, though it was with quivering lips. This was so different from the welcome that she had fondly pic- tured to herself. “ Either they are not glad to see me, or are wofully deficient in politeness,” she thought. “You wont find us much like your city friends,” said Helen, pushing forward a chair for her to sit down. “Our little village was never noted for aping any new-fangled ideas.” “And yet there are some fine people here, if I remember correctly.” “Of course. It would be strange indeed if there were not.” Maggie had declined the chair, and was now standing beside the window, opposite her sister, looking rather wearily out into the street. Suddenly a strong hand was laid upon her arm. “ Haven’t you no greeting for me, Maggie ?” “QO,is it you, Harry? Of course I have—a thousand of them;” and she grasped the Maggie's Experience. young man’s hand very warmly, a bright glow breaking suddenly into the cheeks. “You have come to quite a young lady since 1 saw you last,” he said, looking at her keenly. Her eyelids drooped a moment. She was wondering if he remembered those happy days so long ago, when they used to go to school together, he a great strong boy, almost a man, then—and she a wee girl, and how she had often promised to be his wife, some day, when they were both grown up! What foily children are sometimes guilty of! Harry Henderson was a third cousin of the family, or about as nearly connected to them as that would be. He had been brought up among them, though possessing considerable property—thousands enough to have at least admitted of his keeping up a good style any- where. He was a lawyer, just coming into practice, and seemingly undesirous of a wider field of influence than that country village. “ You must have been very busy with your thoughts, not to have heard me when I came in,” he went on, his strong eyes yet upon her face. “I made noise enough, Helen will tell you that,” and he laughed. “ Yes,” said Helen, speaking quickly, “you might have heard the clump of his baot heels half way to the street.” “It was all my heedlessness,” returned the young girl. “I- was thinking what a nice, quiet place this is. To be sure it could be im- proved, if one had only the time and means. I wish it might be done.” She glanced about the room with a sigh. The arrangement was certainly not a pleasing one to a person of delicate taste. The furni- ture was expensive enough, but sadly out of order. The carpet was not over clean, and the only picture on the walls was a faded-out print of Napoleon crossing the Alps, of which the only merit was its unlikeness to anything under heaven or on earth. It is a wonder that the shade of the little corporal did not haunt the room, to avenge himself that such a caricature should be suffered to hang there. On the mantel were two bouquets of dried grasses, from which the beauty had faded forever. At one end was a little earthen bird, perched upon the edge of its nest, and opposite it a plaster of Paris parrot, gorgeous- ly dyed in green, yellow and crimson. On a stand by one of the windows were a few sickly plants, that looked as if they had been trying to grow, but only made out to spindle. “It is well enough fap Ma adie sting