Now Miss Ellen's cupboard in the farthest end of the room was never left open, as cord often was by mistake, or Matilda's for Ann to visit of her own accord.. Miss Ellen kept many keys and took time to open this corner door, and then only when few of us were by, but its revelations were hardly pleasant if
tunteushed. food given For at meal ing plates, heaped cul re It bors ey with dinner
decided objection to eat before he would munch and Framble to herself, turn and cover with her nife the food on her plate, till, wearying of Miss Matilda's side remarks to Miss Emily, she would rise, unlock her cupboard, open it just enough to enable her plate to pass through, and deposit it bodily on top of the plates already there. I fancy I can smell the odour from that corner now. If Ann happened to be in the room on these occasions, she would fly to Miss Ellen's side and say plaintively; "Oh, Miss Ellen, dear, do lot me have one or two plates; we truly ain't got enough to goon with;" but'Ann was ignored and never favoured. Miss Matilda too—whose appetite was very good—would put on a pretended face of affectation, while Miss Emily, ever gentle, would do all in her power to prevent the elder sister remarking on the younger's wuliarities. Miss Matilda and is Ellen is never agreed, while Miss Emily was the peacemaker of the family, reminding them, oh, so often, that "sister Fanny and dear other would be so grieved." There was a sad state of affairs in that cupboard when poor Miss Ellen was no more.
There was nothing objectionable about Miss Emily's cupboard. Its very outside looked more polished than the others, and it stood in the corner where the morning sun beamed smilingly on it; so much so that I had a habit of drawing the curtain to when Miss Emily invited me to come with her." I can still fancy I see her now, the tall stately unbent figure gliding before me, in her sweeping grey dress and the back of her dainty fichu, with the little brown curls bobbing upland down on the nape of her neck, saying "Come, ' child," as followed; and out would come the one tiny key and open wide flew the door giving out odours of lavender and revealing many quaint old-fashioned things—niemo= rials of ''sister Fanny and dear mother." T learned many things from Miss Emily's cupboard; here she would tell me of her youth, her infatuations, and the never+ forgotten tumour. How a real marquis left his card at the hospital, enquiring how she was, and expressing his wonder (though how she knew it I never heard, but Miss Emily was fully aware of her attractions) that so beautiful a woman should suffer so any, and undergo so painful an operation.
"Miss Emily," I enquired one day as we stood by the cupboard dour, how did you happen to get such a dreadful thing?"
Not dreadful, child, nothing is droudful that God sends you. I fell," she explained, "over a five-barred gate and the busk of my corset ran into my side; there is: a moral even to my misfortune." Yes, Miss Emily," I assented. Yes, it is a lesson," she said, " never to wear corsets, but leave one's figure to the developing of the Divine power. Sister Fanny had such a beautiful figure, that I was vain, and bought unknown to dear mother a pair of black satin ones, wanting to be like her. Sister Fanny. had a perfect figure." I always felt it was nice of her to own up to her dead sister's greater attraction though I felt sure that sister Fauny''s figure could never have been perfect without the aid of corsets, but that is I suppose because f live in " modern age, and I never of course said as much to Miss Emily, "There were over a hundred cards left on me at the hospital," she told me often, I had many admire "Tam sure you had, dear Miss Emily," Twould say, "Oh! yes, many and many, Lcould have married any ove."
I believe Miss Emily might have had numerous admirers. She always spoke of them in numbers, still, like her sisters, her heart was attached to one, and I' am grieved to say I never heard with any cortainty why Miss Emily failed to marry. Occasionally she related to me of one man's proved I think that she loved him, unless her coldness to him preyed on her mind. She told me of that one last visit, when they were closeted alone in the drawing-room with the French window, and where—as Ann told me often—she peeped in—he threatened to blow out his brains, producing the pistol, if Miss Emily refused him. And Ann said they stood on the hearth rug then, but at Miss Emily's request he prt away the pistol and finally determined to go to the nearest public house and drink, declaring that out of revenge to her, he would propose to the first woman. who entered the bar. This story I have always wanted to leave out of Miss Emily's life, it is to me a part of her; and if, her polished old-fashioned self, it more likely to be true, for I never knew her to countenance a lie. I have. learned since that I myself am the grandchild of that very man who in very truth did marry the first woman who was brought into the bar, and she was carried in faint ing fromthe coach on the way to Henley," Miss Emily's lover having merely consoled himself with s glass of cider at: the little rustic inn known by the name of The Wheat Sheaf." I heard this and much more by Miss Emily's cupboard. door.—(To be con AFam, sulpholine Soap: gives the natural tint and peach-like Bloom a perfect Complexion; makes. the Skin, supple, healthy, comfortable. Sulpholine Soap, 6d. Tablets, Everywhere. (4)
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.