The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1879-01-17

one of the bankers rich relations. Why
don't yer call yer carriage, and pay him a
Christmas visit -.
He ran on, laughing and Len, feeling as
if his weary limbs would support him no
longer, sat down on the lowest of the broad
stone steps leading to Mr.. Capels door,
staring vacantly the while at well-dressed
girl and boy, a few years his junior, who
were coming rapidly towards him hand-in-
hand.
They were the children of rich parents, for
the young lady was clad in velvets and furs,
and her youthful companions suit and warm
ulster were of the handsomest materials.
They had been skating in one of the parks,
for the boy carried, slung ON his arm, the
Acme skates they had been using. Happy,
needless, laughingly comparing their exploits
on the ice engrossed in each other the
sweet blue eyes of the little maiden, full of
honest admiration of her brave, handsome
schoolboy, who on his part, thought Cousin
Hetta the jolliest little darling in the world
neither of them saw the pallid outcast till
| they stood beside him.
What are you doing here, fellow ex-
claimed the boy, angrily: SEQ away di-
rectly, or I'll make you =" q
"Oh Maurice, he looks so ill-so hun
CRY! Don't speak roughly to him, " pleaded
the gentle girl.
he TdlSeu lis SuHheu eyes " GlC oCllCdtC-
ly fair speaker, and gazed at it till his fixed
stare frightened her.
"He's no business here" said Maurice
Capel, the bankers son. "We can't have
such disreputable lad lurking about our
door B"
"Give him something, and he'll so
away" whispered Hetta.
Papa says we should not encourage
beggars," Maurice told her, with dignitied
air
"But it's Christmas time,' she pleaded,
Won't you Then the poor lad shall have
my sovereign that grandma gave me. |
wanted to make some one happy with it. "
Bidding Len wait, the children ran into
the house, Maurice rturning alone with his
cousins solitary coin for nurse had pounced
upon the young lady to change her dress for
dinner. By this time the porter who open
ed the door had ousted the outcast from his
seat. Mr.. and Mrs. Capel were coming
along the crescent, and what would master
say if he found his carefully whitened steps
desecrated by the presence of vagrant
Hetta's golden gift-fung, rather than
presented, to the retreating Len-was
scarcely in his palm when Mr.. Capel step
ped forward, stern and IMPLYING.
His first angry speech was for his son.
60 How dare he ignore his.command, and en-
courage such disreputatable vagabond as
that ?" His next for Len, whom he threat.
ened with the police and the treadmill, bid
ding him begone in such menacing tones
that the lad attempted to obey staggered
a few PAGES, and then dropped to the pave
ment.
Intoxicated, of course !" said the bank
er, with shrug.
"Dying fear," answered a surgeon.
who had CHANGED to be passing, and stopped
to feel the pulseless of poor, helpless, be-
numbed Len.
''Better carry him to the workhouse," :"
suggested some one else !; and he was borne
away by a couple of policemen to spend his
Christmas within the walls of st. Bonaven-
ture's poorhouse.
And thus ended Lens first visit to the
stately mansion of the Capels, No. 25, Dal-
by Crescent. Mr.. Capel, touched for mo-
ment by his condition, had resolved to do
something for him, if he lived; but i'll the
festivities of the season the resolve was for
gotten.
tn he continued.