From The Argosy.

SWEET NANCY.

SHENTON was a dull and sleepy village at the best of times; but then it was situated so far from any town. Exboro' was the nearest, and that was ten miles away. To reach it you must traverse a range of pine-clad hills, descending now and again into cool valleys, full of sweet scents and sounds in summer, but dreary enough in winter, when the snow lay thick and the wind whistled through the leafless branches.

Shenton consisted of one long street, terminating in a green on which the church and schoolhouse stood. After that there were no more houses till you reached Exboro', excepting a few scattered farms a mile or two away at Braley Brook. There was also a large farm, known as the Manor, half a mile in the opposite direction, occupied by one Jacob Hurst, who was the owner of the farms at Braley Brook.

The last house in the long street, at the Green end of it, was occupied by Miss Michin, a milliner and dressmaker, as a card in the window informed the passerby. Not that the card was necessary, as of course in so small a place everybody knew everybody else; but it was a sort of sign of office, and was always most carefully replaced when Sarah Ann, Miss Michin's Lilliputian maid, cleaned the window, which she did much oftener than was necessary at least, Mrs. Dodd, the post-mistress, who lived opposite, said But then Mrs. Dodd had the shop and a young family to attend to, and did not find it possible to keep her own windows equally bright; so it was perhaps natural that she should find a comfort in remarking on her opposite neighbor in the manner we have described.

So.

Miss Michin's front parlor window was draped with white muslin curtains, which covered it entirely, preventing the eyes of the curious from taking surreptitious glances at the finery therein displayed, and destined to be seen for the first time at church on the persons of the fortunate owners. Just now, a fortnight before Christmas, the array of gay dress material

which lay about on tables and chairs was more than usual; and Miss Michin and Nancy Forest - her decidedly pretty apprentice were working as if their lives depended upon it. Nancy was the only apprentice Miss Michin had, and she had taken her when she was fourteen without a premium, on condition that when she should be "out of her time (that would be in three years) she should give six months' work in payment for the instruction she had received.

Nancy was now working out the six months, which fact shows her age to be between seventeen and eighteen. At that age a girl - above all, a pretty girl-likes to wear pretty things; and Nancy had many little refined tastes which other girls in her class of life have not due, perhaps, to the fact that while a child she had been a sort of protégée of Miss Sabina Hurst's up at the Manor Farm. Miss Sabina, who was herself not quite a lady, was nevertheless far above the Forests, who were in their employ, and had charge of an old farmhouse at Braley Brook. She was Mr. Hurst's sister, and had been mistress at the Manor since Mrs. Hurst had died in giving birth to her little son Fred.

Mr. Hurst - a hard and relentless man in most things was almost weak in his indulgence of his son. All his fancies must be gratified, and in this Miss Sabina concurred. One of Fred's fancies had been to make a playmate of little Nancy Forest. It followed, then, that she had been a great deal at the Manor; but when the children grew older, and Fred took what his aunt and father termed " an absurd fancy to be a musician, as his mother had been, it occurred to them that possibly later on he might take a yet more absurd idea, and want to marry his old playmate. Nancy was therefore banished from the Manor Farm.

But Fred, who was not accustomed to be crossed, often met his old friend on the hills and in the valleys; and after she had become apprenticed, he would often walk home with her part way-not as a lover, however. For the last two months he had broken this habit, and Nancy had not seen him.

But we were saying that girls of Nancy's age liked pretty things to wear. Nancy was no exception, but she had no pretty things; her clothes had, in fact, become deplorably shabby, though by dexterous "undoing" and "doing-up " she did manage to make the very most of her dark blue serge costume. The dress and rather

coquettish little jacket were of the same material; and she had a felt hat of the same color, which in some mysterious way altered its shape to suit the varying fashions. Last winter the wide brim was straight; this winter it was turned up at the back, with a bunch of dark blue ribbons on the crown. Altogether her appearance was picturesque, though the odd mingling of the rustic with the latest Paris fashion-plate might call up a smile to your lips. The smile which the costume provoked was sure to die, however, when you looked at the girl's face. You wondered at once why the lovely brown eyes looked so sad and appealing, and why the little mouth was so tremulous, and why the color came and went so frequently on the finely moulded cheeks, which were just a little thin for perfect beauty. And if you happened to be a student of human nature, you would read in one of Nancy's glances a story of conflicting emotions-disappointment, timid expectancy, hope, and a dawning despair; at least, this is what I read there when I looked at Nancy from the vicar's pew one Sunday morning at Shenton church. I was on a visit at the vicarage then.

Of course, it must not be supposed that Miss Michin read Nancy Forest's face in this way; but the little dressmaker had a warm heart, though worried by the making of garments, and more by making two ends meet which nature had apparently not intended for such close proximity; but she had certainly noticed that for the last few weeks Nancy had not looked well.

It was growing dark one Thursday evening, and Sarah Ann had just brought the lamp into her mistress's parlor. Miss Michin turned up the light slowly, remarking, as she did so, "I don't want this glass to crack. I might do nothing else but buy lamp-glasses if I left the turning-up of them to Sarah Ann. This one has been boiled, which Mrs. Dodd says is a good thing to make them stand heat.' Then she broke off suddenly, and stared at her apprentice, exclaiming: "Nancy, child, how pale you look! You must leave off and go home. You shall have a nice cup of tea first. Where do you feel bad?

The sympathetic tone brought the tears to Nancy's eyes, perhaps more than the words, but she answered hastily: "Oh, indeed, dear Miss Michin, I need not go home. I have a headache, that is all, and I must not leave off before my time. ought to stop later, and you so busy." "That frock of Emma Dodd's is just VOL. LXXIV. 3833

LIVING AGE.

I

on finished, isn't it?" said Miss Michin, in answer.

"All but the hooks," replied Nancy. "Then sew them on while I make some tea, and you can leave it at the post-office as you go.'

Nancy protested, but Miss Michin insisted, and in a short time the dress was pinned up in a dark cloth, and Nancy having drunk the tea, more to please her kind friend than because she thought it would cure her headache, donned the little jacket and fantastic hat, and went across to the post-office, which was also a shop of a general description.

Mrs. Dodd was engaged in lighting her shop window when Nancy entered.

"I have brought Emma's dress, Mrs. Dodd," she began, when that lady had descended from the high stool on which she had mounted to place the lamps in the window. "Miss Michin told me to tell you there wasn't enough of the plush to finish off the lappets to match the collar and cuffs, but she thinks you'll like it just as well as it is."

Mrs. Dodd examined the little dress, and, having approved of it, asked in a friendly way what Nancy herself was going to have new this Christmas.

"Oh, I don't know yet," answered Nancy, coloring deeply. "You see, I'm not earning yet, and father's wages are small, you know."

"Mr. Hurst is real mean, I know that," exclaimed the post-mistress decidedly. "None but a very mean man would have cut your poor father's wages down after he was laid up with a bad leg so long."

"But father says himself that he can't do as much since his accident, and he doesn't want to be paid beyond what he earns," Nancy explained hastily.

Mrs. Dodd began to fold up Emma's dress, remarking, as she did so: "It's a queer go as Mr. Hurst should have let young Mr. Fred do nothink but music; but, to be sure, he do play beautifully. My Benny, as blows the organ for him, says it's 'eavenly what he makes up himself. He's uncommon handsome, too; much like his mother, who was, poor young lady, a heap too good for the likes of Jacob Hurst. She used to play the church organ like the angel Gabriel."

Mrs. Dodd glanced at Nancy to see the effect of this simile, which was quite an inspiration, but the girl was intent on smoothing the creases out of her very old and much-mended kid gloves.

"Folks do say, Miss Nancy," went on Mrs. Dodd, "as young Mr. Fred had a

II.

FRED HURST's father was Nancy's father's master, as we have seen; and a hard enough master, as Mrs. Dodd had said. John Forest and his family- that is, his wife and Nancy-lived in the only habitable part of what had once been a considerable farmhouse. John worked on the "land," took care of the horses and other live stock there were not many and his wife attended to the poultry, which were numerous enough. She also earned a little by mending the holes which the rats bit in the corn-sacks. In harvest-time she made gentian beer for the men, and a kind of harvest cake, originally made for a four-o'clock meal, which explains the word known as "fourses." But with all these little extras the Forests found it sufficiently hard to live, and of course Nancy was not yet earning.

"You ought to have sent that girl of yours to service," Mr. Hurst would not infrequently say to Nancy's mother. He, moreover, said the same thing to his maiden sister Sabina, when Fred was present.

It was then that Fred's eyes opened to the fact that Nancy Forest was more to him than anything else in the world — far, far more than the old playmate he had thought her. Send Nancy to service! sweet, delicate, lady-like little Nancy, with her dimpled white hands. Perhaps Nancy had no business to have white hands, and dainty, refined ways; but she had, and that was Aunt Sabina's fault for having her so much at the Manor. It was partly nature's fault, too, certainly, for Nancy had always seemed like a changeling, she was so above her surroundings.

Fred Hurst having thus discovered his own love, proceeded to discover Nancy's. It was all clear to him now, he was sure she had given her pure, childlike heart to him, perhaps unwittingly, as he had done. How blind he had been! With knowledge, caution came. Fred made up his mind that be must no more walk with Nancy till he was prepared to do so in his true character that of a lover. This would be impossible till he could offer a home to Nancy. It might be that his father would even turn the Forests away, if he suspected his son's affection for their only child. He could not risk that. So two months passed.

seen.

Fred was organist at the parish church and had been composing songs as we have Most of them had come back to him accompanied by polite notes of refusal; one or two had come out and failed

to attract any notice. Now Winged Love was proving a success so he had resolved to speak to Nancy herself, though not yet to the parents on either side. It was a pity he didn't take the straightforward course it pays best, did people but know it. Had Fred Hurst gone to the house boldly that night, it might, as I have said, have saved much misery. Had he glanced through the uncurtained window of the "house-place," I think he would certainly have gone in, for he would have seen Nancy in tears.

Mrs. Forest was a woman whose temper could not have been sweet under the best of conditions. It will be understood, then, that it developed into something very bad indeed under the worrying influence of a master like Mr. Hurst, who was never satisfied, and whose method of dealing with those he employed was one of incessant bullying. He was, moreover, subject to delusions about being cheated, and his suspiciousness was always in evidence.

This last fault was also one of Mrs. Forest's own, and if anything a worse one than her bad temper, and was not infrequently the occasion of an exhibition of the latter. When Nancy got home from Miss Michin's on the night when Fred Hurst tried to meet her, she found her mother in one of her worst moods. Mr. Hurst had been there all the morning, superintending the killing and packing of the turkeys for the London market. Nancy had made up her mind on her way home to ask her mother for a little money to buy herself some new gloves. solved to make her request at once on entering the house-place, where her mother was partly from a desire to get what generally proved a disagreeable business over as soon as possible, and more, perhaps, because she saw her father sitting smoking his pipe in the chimneycorner. John Forest usually supported his daughter, who was a great favorite of his. He generally called her "Sweet Nancy," because she was so pretty and dainty, and, above all, so good-tempered -a quality he knew how to appreciate.

She re

"I was wondering, mother," Nancy began hesitatingly, as she removed her hat and advanced towards the wood fire, above which Mrs. Forest was hooking on a huge kettle of fowls' food -"I was wondering if I might have some new gloves for Christmas."

"And where, I should like to know, is the money for them to come from?" demanded the mother sharply. "I want lots