The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1870-03-17
THE COMING W0MAN.
A Romance Of The XVIII Amendment.
BY NY ELOCUM,
CHAPTER I.
THE LOVERS.

"Speak. sweetest, and bid me hope z"
Such were the words that fell in honeyed
accents from the lips of Zenobia De We're,
the most gifted, brilliant and promising young
lawyess in the city of N Well, indeed,
was Zenobia entitled to the pround position
she had achieved. unaided. in the ranks of
that exacting and Jealous fraternity. Left a
penniless orphan, she had surmounted, one
after another. the difficulties that beset the
pathway of the poor and unknown. and by
her maiden plea in behalf of an innocent
but too confding youth, who had been wrong
ed and betrayed by willy and heartless de-
ceiveress, she had electrified the court and
jurywomen by an appeal Of mingled pathos
and invective. so powerful that Her Honor
The Judge was dissolved 10 tears. and the
jurywomen with difficulty restrained their
inclination to Scratch the defendants rouge
tinted face, besides mulcting her in heavy
damages.
Zenobia's face would hardly be deemed
beautiful by those whose ideas of beauty are
only satisfied by regularity of features and
bloom of complexion but the seat of no.
BILE intellect was stamped upon her brow,
while its rays beamed from her deep and clo-
quent eye-from both of them in fact-with
| bewildering light that blinded the gazer to
the composite architecture Of her counte-
nance. Many shy. admiring glance had
the stately Zenobia elected from the timid
and susceptible young gentlemen of N:
| but, coolly Indifferent to the shafts of Cupid,
she devoted herself, with unaagging zeal and
undivided heart, to her chosen profession. in
vulnerable, apparently, to the assault of every
passion save ambition. Yet the time soon
came. with the emotional thermometer at the
boiing-po when her earnest nature was
stirred to its protoundest depths
Clarence Fitz Howard (what grateful
! favor peryades those arstocratic names y
was the only son of wealthy stock brokess.
While every luxury and Indulgence that
wealth could command had been his no pre-
cautions had been spared, by his crcumspect
mother, to shield him from improper associa
lions and to protect him from the destinations
of designing fortune huntresses and unprin-
cipled adventuresses. Nor were these pre-
cautions supeffuous. To the alluremcut of
prospective affluence Clarence added personal
charms of the highest order. He was beau
t1ful as poet oTeaIh. HIT Is supposed 10
be rather nice looking mess, | believe. }
The suns of twenty summers had touched
his waving locks with shimmering gold-if
YOU please; the roses of twenty summers had
tinted his downy cheeks with damask hue !;
the skies Of twenty summers had left their
azure in his 'darkly, deeply, beautifully blue
ewes. He was blonde !; and the wan nous,
tache, just budding beneath his dalicately
chisled alabaster nose, was type Of his coy,
modest and clinging nature. This was the an
gelic creature who had thawed the friged
heart of Zeuoba They met the usual
way. They loved-ditto. A tidal wave OF
the tender passion swept over Zenobia's bos-
ON and swallowed up her stern resolve to live
alone for fame; while Clarence felt himself
drawn to Zenobia by that subtle influence
which attracts the vine to the oak, with a
tendency to Irvine little. Then ''eyes look
ed love to eyes which spake again. and
after the customary interchange of eloquent
chances, Zenobia determined to remove all
lingering doubts by extorting, from the lips
of Clarence, confession that might confirm
her sweet hope Of wearing this tender flower
in her bosom So she poured the whispered