The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1882-07-01
--r-heari you were in Paris, or l

that the stony mask of elegant inditfer-
ence and gentlemanly sang trOid, which
he ordinarily wore, entirely dropped
away, and left him-himsef.
Mr.. Margrave," she said, anxiously,
''you are annoyed at seeing me here.
oh, how altered you are! They were
right in what they said this morning.
You are, indeed, altered. Youmust have
been very ILL.,"
Horace Margrave was himself again
by this time. He picked up his hat,
and, dropping lazily into the easy-chair,
said:
Eyes; L have had rather a severe at
Observation-Disclosures. The doctors,
in fact, were so puzzled as to what they
should call my illness that they actually
tried to persuade me that had nerves
Like young lady who, has been Tilted
by e-guardsman, or forbidden by
her parents to marry country curate
with seventy pounds per annum, and
three duties every Sunday. A nervous
lawyer! My dear Mrs Dalton, can YOU
imagine anything so absurdP Sir James
Clarke, however, insisted on my pack
ing my portmanteau, and setting off for
Mount Blanc, or something of that kind;
and l., being heartily tired of the Courts
of Probate and Chancery, and Verulam
Buildings, Gray's Inn, was only too glad
to follow his advice, and take my rail
way ticket for Geneva"
"And Switzerland has restored youP''
" In measure, perhaps; but not Ell
tlrely. You can see that | am not VET
very strong, when even the pleasing
emotion OF meeting Unexpectedly with
my sometime ward is almost too much
for my ultra-ladylike nerves. But you
were saying, my dear Mrs. Dalton, that
they had been talking of me here"
"Oh, at the breakfast-table this morn
ing. When your visit was announced.
one of the gentlemen said he had met
you in Switzerland, and that you were
looking unhappy"
Unhappy! All, my dear Mrs. Dal-
ton, what misfortune it is for man to
have constitutional pallor, and a head
of dark hair! The world will insist
upon elevating him into blighted be-
ing, with chronic wolf hard at work
under his waistcoat. use myself up by
working too hard over difficult will
case, in which some tiresome old man
leaves his youngest son forty thousand
| pounds upon half sheet of note paper;
and the world, meeting me in Switzer-
land. travelling to recruit myself, comes
home and writes me unhappy!
Now. isn't it too badP If | were blessed
with red hair and fat face, might
break my heart once in three months
without any of my sympathetic friends
troubling themselves about the tract
ure."
"My dear Mr.. Margrave," said Eli.
nor-her voice, in spite of herself, trem
bling little am really now quite
an old married woman; and, presuming
on that fact, may venture to speak to
you with entire candor, may not?"
with entire candor, certainly"
There is the old SILVER in the dark eve
laShes, and the white lids droop over the
handsome brown eyes, as Horace Mar
grave looks down at the hat which
swings backwards and forwards in his
listless hand.
"Then, Mr.. Margrave, my dear guard
ian, for will will call you by that
old name, which can remember speak
ing for the very first time on the day of
my poor fathers funeral. Ohn' she
| added, passionately, chow well--how
| W u,
terrible dayi can see YOU now, as. [
saw you then, standing in the deep en-
brasure of the window in the little
library, in the dear, dear Scottish home,
| looking down at me so compass onatelV,
with dark, mournful eyes. | was such
a child then. ] can hear your low, deep
voice, as | heard it on that day, saving
to me; " Ellinor, your dead father has
! placed a solemn trust in my hands. |
am young, may not be rs good or as
| high-minded man as, to his confidng
mind, | seemed to be- there may be
| something of constitutional weakness
and irresolution in my character, which
may render me, perhaps, by no means
! the fittest person he could have chosen
for your guardian; but so deeply do |
feel the trust implied in his dying words,
that swear, by my hope in Heaven, by
my memory of the dead, by my honor
as man and a gentleman, to discharge
the responsibilities imposed upon me.
as an honest man and an honorable
gentleman should discharge themi'
"Ellinor! Ellinor! for pity's saker'
he cried, in broken voice, clasping one
white hand CON- s.nvely over his avert
ed face.
II do wrong" she said, "to recall
that melancholy day. You did you did
discharge every duty nobly, honestly,
honorably; but now-now you abandon
me entirely to the husband, not of my
choice, but imposed upon me by hard
and cruel necessity, and you do all in
your power to make us strangers. Yet.
guardian Horace-you are not happy"
"Not happym He raises his head,
and laughs bitterly. my dear Mrs.