Northern Ohio journal. [volume] (Painesville, Ohio) 1872-1896, 1880-05-22

And now if he never knew! But he
should know. Some day they would
find her, and the letter in her hand.
And she refolded that letter, took her
pencil-case and addressed it to Mr..
Wilston, and wrote with her trembling
fingers underneath: Il never knew 1
loved you. You must forgive me.
But do-indeed [ do. I am going to
die presently. If l had lived, L would
have tried to be a good wife to you"
And she signed herself his Angel and
lay back in her nest half content.
She lay there little while, looking
up at the blue of the sky rising from
the red and purple of the rocks, with
the white flashes of wings across it, her
mind SO made up to the inevitable that
she had hardly any fear; and she began
softly singing hymn tot herself. eff
mans love is SO precious" she was
thinking, ''what must Gods love be?'
In the midst of this tranquil moment,
however, she was reused by a singular
vibration running through the stout
vine ropes of her cradle, and quite an
other line of thought as instantaneous
ly suggested itself. She had been fully
prepared for this fainting, painless
passing away, high up in air, almost in
the blue sky itself; but falling on the
Jagged rocks and boiling waterfall
that was horrible, and she felt her heart
shaking.
All, yes, certainly the vine ropes were
shaking too. Were they loosening?-
were they falling? O, what was this?
And some great tlapping object was fly
ing over her with a scream--an eagle
started from its perch-and a rope was
following it, a great moose, and then a
hand and arm had suddenly closed
round her from behind, and voice was
CURLY telling her to :. obey and spring
backward - And MIR. Wilston was
drawing her out of the nest of the
grading vines. and she was standing.
trembling in his grasp, on the shelf of
rock whore he leaned, with Il rope round
his waist made fast to a tree above-a
shelf of rock. she thought, with a swift
pulse of chagrin, that had been there all
the time, in a crevice round the corner
of the cliff, and leading a narrow way
up to the sod and the sapling above, if
she had only had the sense to turn her
head and look for it.
Mr.. Wilston did not speak a word.
He was white as ashes, and she thought
she could hear his heart beat. Still
holding her and his rope he crept slow
ly up the narrow shelf; then he set her
down before him, united his rope and
slowly coiled it away, locking at her all
the time, with her downcast eye and
reddening face half hidden under all the
bright brown blowing hair.
NOW, if you please he said, grave
ly, at last, Il will take that letter which
saw you had addressed to me.''
"A letter addressed toyou!" she said,
looking up then, a spark of the old
spirit half eclipsing that new light which
had dawned in her face.
:" Angel, how much logger"
Longertl wish you would tell me, :"
she said, ':how long | have been here
already, and whether it is to-day or to-
morrow, and what
ssHow much longer he cried again,
"do you want to torment me? [ could
claim you as my property by all the
laws Of salvage" he said, stepping to-
ward her: ssBut it isn't necessary, for
I read the letter as you held it in your
hand before l threw the rope over you.
You signed yourself my Angel, You
said you would be good wife to me. -
'Well-I-will," said little Angeli-
ca. And her face grew SO rosy red that
she had to hide it, whether she would
or no, in the first shelter at hand-and
if it was her lovers arms, how was that
to be helped?
''It wasn't such bad Maying, on
the whole,'' she said, presently, as they
went their way home together. after
all, the American fora ISM much be-
hind the wayside hedges in Kent. l
didn't get much of anything but a
fright and a cold to be sure, and of
some love-in-idleness, but you got an
armful of Angelica
sThe sweetest flower for me,'' he
said, ''that blows under heaven. y
Haaper's Bazar.