Her Picture.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XX, Issue 2017, 14 January 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

Her Picture.

“What you looking at, gran’pa?" asked a bright, golden-haired litttc girl one morning. ‘ Her picture, lass." “ What makes you look at gran’raa’s picture so much! Can’t you ’member how she looked when she was ’live ?”

“ Ves, lass, but it fades away; fades so quickly my heart is unsatisfied. I can see her in the picture here and look at her a long time.”

“ What makes you want to so much, gran’pa 1 The face is old and wrinkled—” No, no, lass I You don’t see I The face is fair and round, and the rosos come and go in her checks like they always did when I looked at her long.” “ Why, gran'pa I Her cheeks are wrinkled and sunk in and —”

“ What's tba matter with thee, lass 1 Don’t I know her face ! I can see it as plain as the day I kissed it first in the orchard path long, long ago. Them's dimples you see in her cheeks, lass. Roguish dimples that always laugh to gladden the heart that sees them' And that rose in her hair—”

“ Where, gran’pa ? Let me sec.” “ There, on that side, lass, where the curls shine like gold.” “ Why, gran’pa, it’s all straight and gray—” “ No, no, lass. Don’t I sea them 1 They looked just that way when 1 first loved her, lass. They never changed. I saw them every day till she died, every day for fifty years, the same golden curls. When your mother was a wee babe she used to play with them, lass, and fill her little fingers with the golden rings. Pretty rings, lass, prettier ringsthem golden curls made than ever a princees wore, my—” “ Prettier, than mine, gran’pa?” “ Prettier than anybody’s. There never were any like hors before nor since, never anywhere. And when she, smiling as she do now—” *• Why, gran’po, she ain’t smiling. She’s looking as straight—” “ There, there, lass ; you don’t see. I say when she was smiling as she is now, and the dimples danced and her eyes sparkled and she shook her queenly ticad, them golden curls would always fall like glittering rings, and she was beautiful as an angel—look at her now, lass.” “ Why, gran’pa, she’s just the same all the time. I'll go and ask mamma." And she ran away to tell them, with great tears in her eyes, that grandpa said grandma hair in the old picture was prettier than hers. They left him alone with her. To him she was never old. He secs the face of the long ago, the fairest of all to him. Ho holds the picture so that the sunbeams will fall among the golden curls, and gazes with allot a lover’s pride upon the vision of beauty. Unconsciously his hand brushes the picture ns if stroking back one of the straying curls his fancy secs. Ho kisses it again and again, murmuring the fond love names, and whispering words no other on earth must hear. His heart is thrilled with tho passion spell. His soul is free from the thrall of years and lives in its own immortal youth. The form that lie knows so well, and the face that is fairest of all, have never changed in all the years to love’s sweet idolatry.

The angel that smiles from the golden curls and the spirit that worships in dateless youth arc joined in a heavenly mystery. Seeing not as mortals see, knowing not as mortals know, yet somewhere this side tho eternal shore they wander on in a limitless wav.

Scarlet Fever in the Cow.— Dr. James Cam cron has reported tho results of observations tending to show that cows may snfTer from a pecnliar, hitherto undesevibed, infections disease, and that consumers of milk of these cows may get scarlet fever. His attention was attracted to the subject by an outbreak of scarlet fever which occurred in a certain district in and near London. It was found that the, families in which tbofeverappearcil used the milk from a certain dairy, the cows of which were affected by the pcauliar disease in question. The disease is not exactly a new one, being known to farmers as “ sore teats,” “ blistered teats,” etc., but its nature has not been recognized. In veterinary text-books it is spoken of ns “erythema mammillarum.” Dr. Cameron believes it to be a specific contagious affection occurring usually in the first instance among newly ealved cows, and capable of being communicated to healthy cows by direct inoculation of the teats with virus conveyed by the bands of the cowman. The disease may continue from four to six weeks, and is characterized by general constitutional disturbance, a short initiatory fever, a dry. hacking cough, sometimes quickened breathing, sore throat in severe cases, discharges from the nostrils and eyes, an eruption on the skin round the eyes and hind quarters, vesicles on the teats and udder, alteration in the quality of the milk secretion, and well-marked visceral lesions.

As it is admitted, we believe, that scarlet fever may be disseminated by milk, the importance and interest of Dr. Cameron’s observations are at once apparent. Scarlatina has been described by Professor Borlow as affecting the cow, but the clinical description given is more like that of purpura bstmorrhagica.— Medical Record,