FRANK BEVERLY.
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BY MARY SPENCER PEASE.
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Late in the evening of the last day of September, A. D. 18—, a stage stopped at a small inn, and deposited two trunks, with their two owners: then rattled on to its final stopping-place, six miles further.
The two trunks with their two owners were shown into the best sleeping-room the house afforded, and left with a “dim, religious light” for company. The light showed them (the trunk’s owners, not the trunks) to be men—good-looking and young. Their conversation proved them to be cousins, and on their way to Beverly Park, the home of the handsomer of the two, whom the less handsome addressed as Frank.
“But, Ned, speaking of pictures, and furniture,” continued Frank, interrupting himself in his description of Beverly Park and its picture gallery, “you never have seen Clara. Three years ago she bid fair to be a beauty. To-morrow will prove whether time has or has not fulfilled his promise. Three years ago she was a fairy thing of sweet fifteen. I say, Ned, did you ever see a more horrid place than this inn?”
“Yes, many.”
Frank laughed. “Any way,” said he, “you must acknowledge it is a most dismal apology for a ‘house of entertainment for man and beast:’ I wonder if his godship, Mr. Morpheus, ever deigns to visit it. I feel wonderfully like making the trial. What say you, Ned, shall we court him to wrap us in his mantle of oblivion?”