Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1877-09-27

counting siller like, but I say it will be
the right thing"
The right thing ought to be the
same as the good thing
That IS as We read it. If We have
passed promise, Airlie, be lord o your
word an keep itp'
Roy Alrlle went out very thought
ful man. He had not, indeed, in so
many words, asked Alice to be his wife:
but In many other ways of sweet per
suasion he had asked her that question.
He loved her. too, and he believed that
/ she loved him; but what Of that? Was
marriage the only honorable close to
such sweet summer pastime? To
/ marry Alice was only to add one poor,
/ impoverished estate to another, and he
had just begun to realize that poverty
was a very uncomfortable drawback to
/ proprietorship, and to listen to the pro-
/ pOsals of Lawyer Bell for raising money
to improve and drain his lands. Life
seemed yet SO rich in possibilities.
/ Full Of such thoughts he rambled on.
1t was a cool, brisk morning in October,
and several hunting parties crossed the
moOrs at different points-the joyous
yiew-hallol the sound of the horns, and
the music OF the dogs, came noisily OF
family up the breeze. He thought OF
the chase, of owning fine hunters and
dogs, of keeping open house, and being
member of the country hunt, of fine
old Airlie Hall and its capabilities, and
how 10000 would make it the hand
soonest and most productive estate III
East Cumberland.
He hardly knew how time passed, but
looking suddenly up he saw lady or
horseback, standing about half mile tC
the right and waving her veil as if fol
/ help. He knew in moment what for
! She had lost herway and got into Scafel
Moss. A step or two any side might en-
gulf both horse and rider.
/ He galloped rapidly towards her as
near as was safe, and then cautiously
advancing, told her to dismouut, and
guided her onto firm ground. The
horse, left to its own instinct, picked his
way out with much cleaner feet than
either Roy OF the lady, rubbed up an
acquaintance with Roy's horse, and then
patiently waited for his mistress.
! Roy did not wonder; it seemed to him
as if no more exquisite piece of woman
hood had ever been formed. Great
black eyes moving lazily in kind OF
soft, tender light, rich glowing com
pleXion, delicate features, and red pout-
ing lips. She had pretty little woman
ish ways, and yet rode with daring
recklessness-a creature half fawn and
half centaur, with blood of fire Roy
was dazzled, enchanted, enthralled, and
the more so when he knew she was
the only child of rich Calcutta mer-
chant.
They were visiting at London Park,
and she had got separated from her party
in the ardor of the hunt, lost her way,
wandered into danger, and into Roy's
horizon. She made sad commotion in
that horizon during the next few weeks
now splendily gracious, now haughtily
Indifferent; now meeting Roy's advances
with more than equal passion, and then
treating him with GOODNESS which almost
set him wild.
Her mother had been a Mahratta
chieftainess, and she was going back,
she said, with her father to Calcutta in
a few weeks. Janet prayed for her de
parture. Her dress, manner, style OF
beauty, her very name was an otfense.
"Hahal, indeedP' she said, when
told Mahal was her name "Such an
heathenish name just fits her; she's
more like a splendid leopard than a
woman"
And just as leopard might play with
its victim she played with Roy; now
suffering him to escape her tolls and
now Turing him back with some fresh
witchery which he was powerless to re-
sist. But at length, one night, she en-
couraged him to pour out his whole
| heart-she suffered him to hold her
childlike hands-to feel the perfume OF
her childlike curls, to touch her glowing
cheeks. She dismissed him with kiss
which intoxicated him with joy-and
the next morning left for Calcutta with
out one word of kindliness or farewell.
He did not know she had gone for
twenty-four hours. The news smote him
like a sword. He went back to Airlie
house like a man stricken with death.
The disappointment was the climax to
six weeks ofworry and anxiety; typhoid
fever was the most natural of results,
and Roy went down to the very gate of
the grave with it. 1t is said that most
love affairs can be cured by a smart at
tack of fever; we can only judge Roy's
by the results.
Whatever thoughts occupied the long
hours of his recovery, the first visit he
made was to Alice Elderslie. He
frankly confessed his infatuation for the
splendid Mahal, and begged her, if she
could trust an affection whose roots lay
deeper than it to forgive and accept
him.
But womans instinct in such mat
tiers is very fine. Alice saw good rea-
sons to distrust his cure. She was quite
sure that Mahal yet had a very
powerful influence over him, Perhaps
she was right, for upon Alice's refusal
Roy placed his estate in Lawyer Bells
care, left the house with Janet, and sud
denly disappeared.
OF course he went to Calcutta, and
upon the principle that like cures
like" he could have done no wiser
thing. He saw there a superf1uity of
beauties like the magnificent Mahal.
Hundreds of women, with soft, black,
lusrous eyes, and carnation cheeks, and
forms of yolumptuous loneliness. The
semi-barbaric splendor of dress and
jewels which had so dazzled him by its
contrasts with the simplicity of English
costume became common and famil-
lar sight. Mahal lost by the side of
still lovlier halfbreeds; and as she had
touched no moral or intellectual point
of Roy's character, she soon lost him
altogether.
There very soon came time when
he could have paid her back in her own
coin, but Roy came of a race of gentle
men. and MahaPs MeannnS were not In