MISS ARABELLA'S "AFFAIR"

It was the lot of Miss Arabella Simpkins to have lived for over forty
years without one real affair of the heart. There were reasons for
this, well known to all the people of Hillcrest. Not only had her
father, a lumberman of considerable repute in his day, been very
particular as to the young men who visited the house, but Miss Arabella
herself was the chief objection. She was by no means handsome, and in
addition she was possessed of a sharp tongue, and, as Captain Josh
truly said, "a long nose which was always prying into other people's
business." These frailties naturally increased as she grew older until
she became a dread not only to her brother, Tom, but to all her
neighbours, especially the children.

She had two redeeming features, however: a generous heart for those she
liked, and considerable money. This latter had its influence, and made
her tolerated in the company of others, where she was indulged with a
certain amount of good humour.

But a real romance had never come into Miss Arabella's life, and this
was her great trial. No suitor had ever sought her out, and with
languishing eyes had watched her as she moved among the other maidens
of the parish. Friends of her girlhood days had been more fortunate.
They were married, and had families around them, while she alone had
been left "like the last rose of summer," as she often told herself.

But Miss Arabella never let people know about her trial. On the
contrary, she wished them to believe that her heart had once been won
by a handsome and gallant young man. Just what had become of him, or