Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1882-02-23
BY THE WINTERS MOON.

BY THE WINTERS MOON.
1t would seem as if life were a tolera.
bly, easy thing to live, certain things
being taken for granted, as the posses
sion of good name and family and for.
tune, of beauty and grace and courage,
and the love of women, and all mems
good will, of youth to boot, that last
gift OF the gods. And yet Penrose did
not find it so.
Perhaps he had had too much good
luck, and the sameness palled on him.
Perhaps the one little touch was want
ing to set the amorphous particles into
shape as the perfect crystal of happi-
ness. At any rate, he was far from
being contented man; longed for other
things. larger way of life, adventure
of some sort, a voyage to the north pole,
the loss of all his money-sOmething to
break the endless chain of days.
1t may be that if Barbara Seavern
had been more gentle with him that
wanting touch would have been given
to his crystal. But as Barbara had
heard, before ne ever came to Beach
line, some foolish speech concerning his
fortune and its power to bring him all
he wanted, she had no inclination to
treat him with any gentleness she could
avoid. And as, of course, she never
told him of hearing such speech, he
never had the chance to deny having
made 1.-THE last sort of thing he would
have said, by the way, valuing his for
tune, as he did, only as an impeachment
to all enterprise. "For you see,'' he
said once, in his engaging way, to Mrs.
Seavern, who, not having quite the re-
serve of her daughter, had alluded to
the matter of his accumulated inher-
itance, Sc it is very unfortunate for me.
never shall do anything unless l throw
it all to the dogs and then 90 after it.
Ii L were only cast upon my own re-
sources, | might discover what is on the
dark side of the moon. But as it is,
with everything made easy, one indo-
lent day begets another. 1t is so COM
Portable here, why should L go to the
moon.'' And Mrs. Seavern told Bar
bara that young Penrose had a most
peculiar and eccentric way of talking,
and she should be sorry to see any one
in whom she was interested caring for
his money to the dogs and then going
after it. But Barbara knew very well
what these remarks meant from lady
the minister whom she did not care
for, and who did not care for her.
Barbara had already sufficiently dis
met Penrose. 1t was at Julia Palmer,s
garden party, in that delightful garden
which ran down and almost wet its
blazing geraniums and turfy terraces in
the sea. She was very late, not coming
till sunset dyed the foam of the breakers
to crimson and gold, as beautiful herself
as any part of the beautiful scene, in her
gown of white nuns yelling and the
belted Jacqueminot roses, with her clear
pale skin, its darkness relieved only by
the rich red of the lips and the blackness
of the lashes of the great luminous eyes,
with the chiseled delicacy of feature, the
abundance, of night-black hair, and the
radiance OF smile that was not shed on
everybody. She drew her tall and
slender figure to its stately height from
her courtesy as Penrose was presented,
and went ON speaking with the person
beside her, without giving him second
glance. She had meant that the first
glance should say all she had to say to
this youth who thought his fortune could
bring him all he wanted; but as that
glance rested on the superb young
athlete with his yellow curls and bronze
brown eyes, the full sunshine of his
suddenly admiring gaze, and the lofty
simplicity of his expression, some an
swering involuntary glance shot across
her own face, and if it were as instantly
sheathed and hidden, he remembered it
afterward like the swift play of lightning
across purple night shadows, which
throws its splendor into far recesses of
the landscape. For there are some
things that need only the electric instant
for their kindling, and love is one of
them. and the fire had flashed from
heart and soul in the first instant of that
first glance. She might be as icy as she
pleased now; he had read her first
thouohts of him, and he meant that they
should be her last.
But something's are more easily said
than done. How was he to talk to her
# she persisted in talking to some one
stupid fellow by her side, who
was. after all, Victor Brown, his own
p How was he to dance
With sher when she told him she was not
dancing, although he had seen her with
voung Wornum moment beforeP How
ccorIId lie ask any one to wander down
the Garden walks and out upon the
heao5 sand who would not once glance
his wayPf He contented himself with a
heavy philosophical discussion with
JnIias PaiYner, and then sought out Mrs.
Seayern, on the principle that if she
was not the rose she had lived near the
,ose. { At length, and unexpectedly,
bowever. fate favored him, when, as the
whole party having stepped down to the
COO line to look at the phosphorescence |
If the water, she strolled along farther
han she knew with her engrossing