The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1871-03-02
ALICE READE.
BY VIRGINIA F. TOWNSEND.

BY VIRGINIA +. TOWNSEND.
AIiserably unfortunate and poor
His wife and child in actual need OF
life's comfort! Oh! Lucius! Lucius
am reyenged now" and a smile, sad
event in its triumph, curled over the
beautiful mouth of the speaker.
She was young, SO young that you
would have hesitated whether to write
her girl or woman, and her only
beauty were her mouth and eyes
The one was large, but soft, sweet
flexible, the responsive instrument on
which her soul always struck its infin-
itude of emotion and feeling. The
eyes were large and deep, transla-
ton of her soul rather than her heart,
as perhaps eyes oftenest are.
Up and down her chamber with
that sad, bitter smile on her lips, Alice
Reade walked many times. The vel
vet carpet, its dark groundwork piled
with Sorrento roses, cushioned her
feet. Soft landscapes of the Rhine,
intermingled with wild pictures OF
Alpine scenery. leaned down to her
from their oval frames, but needless
of all beauty about her, its mistress
walked amid if, her soul wrapped in
a joy which the angels must have
written sin.
And yet you should pity her, fol
great had been her wrong. She had
the elements of a very noble nature
too, but here mother had died before
Alice met her tenth summer, and
there was none that understood her
deep, emotional nature, her impulsive,
poetic temperament.
Her father was plain, practical
farmer, whose being was absorbed in
the few acres which lay around his
yellow brown homestead, and he re-
garded Alice as remarkably sensible
child, because she always preferred
red books to dolls and bonnets. She
attended the village school until she
was eighteen, for her rather was in
dulgent to fault, and though he
fumed and fretted over the semi-annu-
al school bills, he never had the heart
to withdraw Alice from the studies
she loved. There she met Luciue
Brante. How the thought of the
proud woman reached off that hour,
and drag it up to the present!
He was poor, an artist. and school
teacher with an earnest esthetic ma
ture, and much of that social magnet
ism that attracts the sympathy of 9TH
ers.
Alice was his pupil. / do not know
how it happened, but both teacher and
scholar learned lesson that was not
in the text book that summer.
"Alice," said the young man, brush
ing away the rich curls that leaned
l,, %, hAr -,
stood by the old farm gate ON the last
night of his stay in Meadow Brook,
/ give you my heart. Take and keep
it. | must go out into the world and
win me name and place there, and
then will come back to YOU"
81 will take and keep it till I give
back both to God" answered the girl
solemnly, and so they parted.
She had been true to him-through
the dark triumph of her face comes
a softer light with the thought. True.
when temptations thickened about her
when her father died, and she came
to her fashionable cousins in New
York, and entered upon that new life
of wealth and luxury.
Piquant and impulsive, graceful,
and sometimes beautiful, it was Got
strange she created an unusual sensa-
ton. But the dreaming, fairhaired
youth, whose rapt eyes leaned over
his easel in the fourth story of an old
building, in an obscure street of the
metropolis, owned the heart that no
princely fortune could have bought
Alice's relative was an intriguing,
worldly woman, She had no children
OF her own and whatever of affection
could exist in such nature was be-
slowed on the orphan. Mr.. Reade
was a widower and millionaire and
if his life was leaning down to the
shadows of sixty, he thought that was
no reason why he should not have a
young and beautiful wife to preside
over the elegant home whose founda-
items were already laid on Fifth Ave-
nue..
"She'n throw herself away on that
handsome young painter and starve
to death in garrett" unused Mrs.
Henley, between her lunch and her
lap-dog, after long interview with
aIr. Reade.
"I'd forbid him the house, but AL
ice is such high-spirited girl. 4 lit
tie diplomacy will succeed best with
her. 1t would only be doing the
child a long life favor"
Well see!1 significantly perora-
ted the portly lady, as she divided q
slice of cake with her canine favorite.
"Alice 2"
"Aunt?" and the girls bright face
leaned over the balustrade.
"Here's letter for you I found
among my cards after dinner. | for
got to hand it to Won. ErcuSe moi!
What, not yet dressed for the party p
AS Alice came eagerly down the
stairs, her eyes Frightening at the
we'll known chirography.
"No; but I shall be in half an
hour" and she went back to her room
No one saw her again that night
That letter struck out all the light
and joy, and faith of Alice Reade's
life!
Two months later there was wed.
ding, and very gorgeous one, at the
residence of Mrs. Henley. Alice was
the wife of millionaire.
Well, he was good, indulgent sori
of husband, and loved his young wife
better oven than he did his house and
horses, which is saying q great deal
for these were his passions.
And Alice, 1 have given you the
keynote to her life. You can feel the
sadness Of the heart hymns amid al
the earth-glare and luxury through
which it rises.
- Yes, it is triumph hour now, Lu
cins Brante," murrnurs the lady, al
she twined the watch-chain round hel
white fingers, still pacing up ano