The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1879-10-09
JACQUEMINOT ROSES.

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1t all came about in this way. Oh
course it was wicked, and outrageous,
and ungrateful, and all that, but then
it was so sudden that she really did not
know what had happened. And then,
why in the world should the Professor
object to Adrian, in whom there was
neither spot nor flaw? The man selfishly
wanted to keep the child himself, and
after him the deluge! Yes, it came
about in this way. He had adored her
so long. At first at such an awful dis
lance" the desire of the moth for the
STAR" her uncle Redmond used to call
it in his evil way; but another person
might have said it was the pure and ar
dent passion of q young soul for its
counterpart. And certainly that ex-
quisite being, so fair, so frail, half hui
man, half seraphic, was only the count
erpart of this fiery, turbulent boy, SO
strong, and SO tender, too, for all the
vehemence of his impulses, so noble,
and SO lofty in his ideals. Of course no
young girl of Elias age could have
looked at his face, could have heard his
voice, and not have felt strange at
traction, for his beauty was as extraor-
binary as the sweetness of his tones.
"Beauty!" growled the uncle Red
mOnd, when some one said so. ssHe
looks like the child of an organ-grinder.
Doubtless he was filched by some pa
drone from some peasant.
"And what of that?'' said the aunt
Redmond, fully in favor of the affair.
"Some people might prefer to be the
children of Roman peasants, with all
their Roman history and ancestry behind
them, rather than to be the children of
parvenus here''
Tooral-looral!n was the reply-a
customary one in such case.
But little did Ella care whether those
long black lashes darkened the eyes of
Roman or SaXon-they were Adrian s
eyes, her lovers, the only eyes that had
ever looked into hers, and the light of
the world was in them. 1t was not his
beauty, after all, that touched her heart !;
it was his personality-himself. If he
had been born in a ruin on the Cam
pagna, he would have been no more in
teresting than now as the son of fish
ing merchant on the Jersey shore, an
undergraduate of the college where her
uncle Redmond was part of the facul-
ty, and, in his own conceit, very i'm
portant part
AS for Adrian, he had seen the girl
coming into church, had met her at col
lege festivals, had watched her walking
in the gardens. He knew her name and
often strolled under her windows; once,
indeed, he sent band there to breathe
out music in the soft, dead dark of the
night, and uncle Redmond growled
something about throwing the Revised
Statutes at their heads, till the aunt pro-
pltiated him by wondering if the sere-
nading were on account of his great
work on the Civil Code. But all this
was at distance. He had not dared
approach her; had not dared speak to
her; had not dreamed of following her.
3" Ella," he softly said to himself.
g" True. She is one of the Elle-people;
she is not for me; she is of the fairy
folk, and l am of the earth, earthv.''
And you would have said that he be-
lieved it, although it was but the ex-
preston of his reverence, of his sense
her separation from grosser things of life.
But one sunset, in crossing a public
square, with the shadows of trees dark
ening the walks almost to twilight, he
saw her moving hurriedly along just be-
fore him, themselves the only people to
be seen in the square. "She does not
touch the earth, she floats,'' he said.
But as he thought it, drunken creature
started from the shadows and reeled up.
leerlng into her face, while she shrank
back with a slight sudden cry. With
bound Adrian was there; his arm fell,
and the offender assuredly touched the
earth, whatever Ella did. Then he
bent with bare head before her half an
instant, stood aside for her to pass on,
and followed again, only at respectful
distance.
She was coming down the steps from
The Presidents reception when he next
saw her, her uncle waiting for her below
her aunt seldom going out in the col
ege society. President Rex always
gave rather gorgeous receptions, though.
20 far as flowers and music went: he
easted the spiritual part, at any rate.
md, for the rest, let weak tea and lem
made 60 as far as they would. Flower
ne plants lined the passages and stair
ways; and as in her pearly gauzes she
descended all alone into the dark, she
ooked to him, ascending, like the spirit
i the flowers and of the music behind |