Three Minute Stories

earless sobs, and murmured Spanish words to herself. Margaret caught the word "Madre!" repeated over and over, and pressed her cousin's hand, and spoke soothing words; but Rita did not heed h

ginal colour in the entire front, and Rita's was little better. Their very faces were bedabbled with black, and they left a black trail behind them on the grass. In

in a different tone, "I beg your pardon, young ladies! I

now in an instant. Her ey

" She swept past him into the house, her superb bearing presenting a singular contrast to her attire; and Peggy f

een drowned there before my eyes, if Miss Peggy had not come by, and drawn her out so cleverly." And she told him the whole st

e. Every one about here knows that peat-bog, and avoids it; I had warned Miss Peggy,

htly, though she was still pale and trembling; but the gardener k

od looking afte

for me! Good stuff in both the others, as I supposed, but this i

heard voices within. She paused a moment, wondering. Should she go in? No; she remembered Mrs. Cheriton's

sed as a little child, arrayed in the rose-coloured tea-gown whose existence she had endangered on the night of her arrival; and there beside her, holding her hand, was Rita, in pale blue and swansdown,-Rita,

or her the honour and privilege of your distinguished acqu

ret's neck, still holding Peggy's hand, so

inly did. "A brute, a devil-fish, what you will! and she-she has saved my life! You saw it, you heard it; anot

ulated Peggy,

lso my own soul, but you are sufficient to yourself; what do you need, piece of Northern perfection that you are? Peg

es filled wit

one to the other. "It is so good!" she cried. "Oh, so good! You can't imagine, girls, how I have longed for this! It did seem so dreadful that you

and begged that she might

s hair?" she asked. "W

ll-shaped head, and wound in a pretty, fluffy Psy

very pretty, but I want her to be a little girl as long as sh

gy. "Indeed I don't

hat of that? We will try another style. Ten, twenty ways of dressing hair I know. Often and often Conchita and I have spent a whole day dressin

extraordinary effect that might sometimes be produced by a single small curl set at the proper curve of the neck. It sounded pretty frivolous, to be sure, but then, Rita looked so earnest and so

f the white old lady, and Rita said frankly that she did not like old people, and saw no reason why she should put herself out, simply because her uncle, whom she had never seen, had chosen to sad

id not belong to their uncle; he had in vain tried to buy the land, in order that he might drain or fence it, but the proprieto

ontrast of the pale blue and rose-colour, in the two girls' dresses. "The pink suits

Peggy; "it is Rita's-" but Ri

gown of last year! One is ashamed to offer

ta! you have the Spanish ways, I see. I have heard not

ed Rita, with animation. "Ah, I did

ra. But now I have something else to say. Your pretty dresses remind me that there is a chest of old gow

delight, she called Janet and bade he

s the sitting-room. Janet was already on her knees before a deep chest, quaintly carved,

h rapture and wonderment. The old lady looked from them to th

t up on the floor; here, again, a velvet, somewhat rubbed by long lying in the chest, but of so rich and glowing a purple that only a queen could have found it becoming. Here were satins that gleamed like f

reached, the girls were silent, hav

th? Were they princesses, or runaway Indian begums, or w

aughed her soft

ying it in this old chest. Some of them are wedding-gowns,-those two satins, for example, and that white brocade with the tiny rosebuds,-that was your Grandmother Montfort's wedding-gown, my dears, and she looked like a rose in

y stitched, and on the paper was written: "This Gown was worne at Madam Washington's Ball. I danced with Gen. Washington, the Court Minuet, and he

nting! how perfectly delightful!

en cloak; notice the sleeves, Rita: they are something in the Spanish sty

y me, Henrietta Montfort, the last time I went to a worldly Assemblage. I lay them away, having entered upon a Life of Retirement and Meditation since the Deat

t let her servants build fires on Sunday because she did not consider it a necessary work. There is a story that one bitter cold Sunday some o

said Margaret, "instead of t

uld have been warm. But what is this, Aunt Faith? If I am truly to call you so, yes? What horror

ashed in every direction, the sleeves hanging in ribbons, the skirt slit and gashed down its ent

ed, against her parents' wishes, a handsome, good-for-nothing man, who made her desperately unhappy, and finally left her. She lost her mind, poor soul, from sorrow and suffering. When her father brought her home to

seemed to the girls as if the poor lady herself were bei

?" asked Peggy, in

o, my dear. I fancy she was too tired to think of anything but resting. There i

cried all three girls eagerly.

pers that had been lost, and the family tradition is that he comes back from time to time to hunt once more through desks and drawers, in hope of finding them. He has never done so, I believe; but then, he has never been here since I came to Fernley. Your Uncl

t just tell us what he looks like, when any one does see him. I have w

his time, and I believe his favorite wear is black velvet. By the way, his portrait is in the long gallery upstairs. Have y

to see out of doors, and when indoors she was always drawn irresistibly to the library and its entrancing folios and quartos. Peggy had, one rainy day, proposed to "see if there wasn't a garret or some place where they could have s

it unlocked? May we roam about wherever we like, Aunt Faith? It

y, less valuable than these dresses, and which you may like to amuse yourselves with. Here are the keys of some of them-the wig trunk, the military trunk; yes, I think you may be sure of an after

, Margaret only lingering to look back with one partin

a. "Hurrah!" shouted Peggy. And the