Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1882-02-02
HER LOST BlKTHRIGHT.

brilliantly-Hghted draWlng-rOOm, watch
ing the gay scene being therein enacted,
sat Gertrude Meyer. For the moment,
she was al0ne-With her, indeed, rare
occurrence, since she was both belle
and beauty; but slight sprain to her
ankle q few days previous had prevent
ed her joining in the dance, and the
little thrOng of men who all the even
ing had gathered about her had for the
instant disappeared, many of them at
her express command.
The last had fingered, reluctant still
to 60, when " 1 am tired" she said
want to be alone"
He bent, then, from his splendid
height, and, with a glance from his
dark eyes few women could have re-
sisted, whispered a few words IN her
ear; but neither glance nor whisper
brought even monetary flash to the
lovely cheek or brow. She met both
with q languid Indifference amounting
almost to haughtiness, and a slight
shrug of the beautiful bare shoulder.
Elsa is without a partner" she re-
joined 81 like to see you dance to-
gether Ask her for this waltz"
An angry light kindled in Frederic
Haughton's eyes, and he turned abb
ruptly away. The next moment, Elsa.
with pleased flush, yielded herself to
bis guidance in the dance; and, with q
half-sigh, though she knew not where
fore, Miss Meyer sank back in her
cushioned corner, a breath from Elsa's
perfumed ribbons being waited to her
as the dancers Aoated by.
Was she always to receive love, new
er to return it? Gertrude asked herself
True, Frederic Houghton had never,
in words, declared his passion; but
every glance, every accent, had been
repleted with its intensity. She felt
that he loved her.
How poor and meagre was the cold
friendship she might offered in return
But, if she determined to smile at least
more kindly, he gave her no opportuni-
ty. Other men flocked back to her side
She had sent him to Elsa; by Elsa he
remained.
One dance followed another, but he
would resign her to no other partner;
and only an amused CLEAN crept into
Gertrude's eyes as she watched him,
and tancied she read the pique which
promoted his aCtlOn-a pique which In
part reflected upon herself, as the next
day and the next passed, until the
week had gone, and still she neither
saw nor heard from him. At the end
of that period she again shrugged her
shoulders, and told herself that she had
forgotten him.
1t was from Elsa, fortnight later
that she learned his regiment had been
ordered into active service, and was to
depart in three days for the seat Of
war.
What should she say to him when he
came to bid her farewell. She need
not have questioned. She waited, but
he came not He left with his good-by
to her unspoken. 1t caused her no
real grief, no heat-pang, but a sort Of
restless surprise, which started some
depths whose existence hitherto had
been unknown.
Three or four days later, Elsa came
9th er with sly blush. She had al
ways been the child's friend and conf
dante. Though in reality but twelve
months her senior, she felt herself the
elder by long years,
Il have favor to ask you, Gertrude"
she began. Frederic asked me to
write him. This morning [ received
his first letter. | am ashamed to send
him my poor little scribbling, and at
school | remembered how beautiful al
ways were your compositions, and l
said to myself, II will 60 to Gertrude
she will tell me what to say" l love
MIN SO much-so very much, Gertrude!
| think that he, too, loves me. [ want
to breathe into my words just enough
of my hearts perfume that he may
know where to seek to find the flower
itself"
Gertrude looked up, amazed.
is this love which makes you so
poetical, Elsa ~ she asked. 81 never
heard you talk like this before"
ut is one of your own thoughts I
borrowed" Elsa answered, "and whose
utterance 1t seems you had forgotten
But tell me, will you do for nae what I
ask?"
"You think it will be honorable ?"
es, yes Whynot? You can tell
him nothing | do not feel-only you
will paint the picture so that he may
love to look at it."
A little longer Gertrude demurred.
atAll tllSll, NIS1NAllSS " ilS1 pen, 1I1hJ anu
paper, she testified to her consent.
As she wrote, her reluctance vanish
ed. She fancied herself in Elsa's place.
She imagined how some rosebud, wooed
by the sun, would one by one open its
shrinking petals, quivering 'twixt &C.
stasy and pain, to meet the passionate
kiss of the Day God and so her imagi-
nation found vent in words.
She covered the sheet with closely
filed lines, and as she read them Elsa
pressed them to her lips.
"Ah, they will make him love me, :"
she cried, as she ran with them to her
own home, to copy them in her own
handwriting.
BY the next mail came his answer.
Elsa had been right.
The latter had strangely stirred his
heart. Pulses he had thought dormant,
he wrote, had leaped into mad, exult-
ant life. He had slept, he told her,
with the paper next his heart.
Again Gertrude wrote, and yet again,
until she looked for his replies almost
as Elsa. She who had never loved in
her life found strange and satisfying
delight in pouring upon the sheet the
cry of hungry soul while her own
soul knew no hunger, the passion she
had never felt, the ecstasy of a love at
which she scoffed.
$50 might l feel" she whispered to
herself, "when, like the sleeping prin-
cess, in fairy lore, the magic prince
would bend and Hiss NV Inns ),