The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1879-11-14

which is to us all an ever-old, ever-new
miracle.
The picture of that night when he
had seen her last came wildly before
him. BY the right of his own love he
had entreated her to tell him il there
was no hope, if she were irrevocably
pledged to Ralph Eveleth, and she had
given him all her confidence.
Il know all his faults" she had said,
shut love him."
"But, my darling, he is so utterly un-
worthy of you," he replied, thinking Of
her happiness before he thought of his
own. "Ohl my love, you will have a
hard life if it is once linked with his.
If he were worthier you than l, could
give you up. If could bear it all for
you-your pain without mine-God
knows would. But it will come to
you alone, love, when you are his wife,
and can have no right to comfort you.
Perhaps there will come time when
you would even rather have my tender
ness than none"
Genevieve looked at him almost un-
comprehending]y
"Why, I love him." was all she said,
|
the deep embrasure of the window seat
"a petite, dainty woman, made OF
spirit, and fire, and dew" with some
subtle charm of her own that no words
could catch. Her beauty depended
much upon expression-glaring, fading.
luminous, evanescent-as cloud pict-
ures, yet marvelously lovely with vivid
lights cleaning in the thoughtful eyes
and lips, whose glow of coral rivaled
the rose tints of the sweet, spirited
countenance, framed and Swallowed by
clouds of soft-falling dusky hair, among
whose soft tresses his fingers had Ca
ressing strayed.
In those days he always thought of
her as the one fair woman who was to
make life fair to him, and through all
the dreary years that followed his love
for Eer was so strong that it held him
always high and pure. Perhaps, after
all, he had been hasty in thinking she
had married Mr.. Eveleth, he thought,
with a wild CLEAN of exultant hope.
Why had she ever cared for Ralph Eve
leth? The question came again to his
mind, and was as unanswerable as it
had been when he first asked it ten
years ago. In fact, her friends ali
asked this when Miss Kelsey seemed to
be drifting on to that fateful crisis of
her life.
Even those who did not know her
very well felt it would be to her one life
long tragedy; not, perhaps, in outer
trial, but in inner endurance.
An ordinary woman might have been
very happy as the wife of Ralph Eve
leth. E-en q Woman of superior en-
dowments, if her nature were strong
and self-centered, and if rot too fine
fiber, might have found life satisfying
to her at his eide. But Genevieve was
not strong woman. She was just
gifted, sensitive, highly wrought girl,
with infinite possibilities in her nature
both ways. a woman of singular
earnestness of purpose, of clear brain,
of warm, loving heart. Delicately
responsive as was her nature, to every
surrounding influence, she could not
live her highest life with Ralph Eve
leth. She was too receptive, too gen
erous, too sympathetic not to be tinged
by the color of the atmosphere in which
she lived.
Mr.. Eveleth was not wholly a bad
man-indeed, he had many elements of
superiority. He was man of rather
brilliant intellect, but fatally weak in
moral power-a man to always do the
thing that at the time seemed easiest
without much care how it affected his
own future or that of others. He
lacked steadfastness and energy of pur-
pose.
Miss Kelsey was a new revelation of
womanhood to him. He had not the
delicacy of insight to fully appreciate
her rare gifts, or to comprehend her
tender sweetness, but he admired her
brilliancy, and resolved to win her for
his own.
But Their: were depths in her nature
he had never sounded-chords whose
melodies his touch could never waken
there were forces all undreamed of by
him. Some day, Ray Converse had
then said, these forces would stir and
demand their fru'tion, and in that day
the tragedy of living would come upon
her.
And so it was that he had trembled
for Genevieve's future when he saw her
gravitate to Ralph Eveleth. He did not
think that her higher nature consented
to it. And in that he was right, for she
went on as one borne by an irresistible
fate. But the crisis in her fate came
sooner than Mr.. Converse could have
foreseen.
There had been some kind of an
, early promise between Genevieve Kel-
sey and Ralph Eveleth; which he went
out into the world and held lightly, and
which she held sacredly in her heart.
She was so true in her nature that she
only measured him by her own pure
J constancy. In those years her strongest
tie TO him, perhaps, was her conscious
ness that he had need of her, and it was
in this perfect unselfshness of her
nature that the trouble came. For the
love of one will not make sacred bond
that demands for its perfection the love
of two. In these first days of sunny
sweetness she did not question much of
life. She was satisfied in being. Vague
desire touched her at times, as she
watched the sunset fires burning low