Millheim Journal. [volume] (Millheim, Pa.) 1876-1984, 1882-03-02
ROSE GERANIUM.
''I hate the odorl"

''I hate the odorl'
Harry Penryth dropped the tiny
spray of rose geranium which he held,
and shudder crept over him. 1t was
ON wide, cool veranda of large hotel
at one of the fashionable watering places
and his companion was Mrs. Warbur-
ton, a young and lovely widow. She
looked up into his handsome face with a
peculiar glance from under her long eye
lushes.
why, Mr.. Penryth," she cried gayly
what an idea! To hate flower"
He tried to smile, but it ended in q
failure.
81 will tell you, Mrs. Warburton, "
he answered, and then you will under
stand me better. In the first plae ever
since I can remember-even when a
child-the odor of rose geranium cause
a curious sickening sensation to creep
over me. I cannot understand 1t; 1t Is
a sort of antagonism or repulsion, Tor
which I fail to account. Then later
He paused and far away look stole
into his dark eyes; as though recalling
the pas!; leaf turned down on some
page of his life-history.
II had dear friend once" he went
ON after pause, "a dear friend--never
had another. Brooks and were like
brothers; modern editions OF Damon and
Pythias they used to call us In the college
where we were educated. had no hopes
of aspirations apart from Gerald; and his
interests were as dear to me as my own.
Nothing could hurt him which did not
hurt me.
81 regretted exceedingly-regretted
with strange pang of jealousy-when
at last, in the course of events, Gerald
fell in love. The lady was one whom he
had met while travelling for the firm
which employed him. never met Miss
Delorme, but I learned she was the per-
lection of grace and beauty; an elegant
and accomplished woman, and, wlthal,
all arrant coquette. She was heartless
and unprincipled. cody deliberating and
systematical. Mrs. Warburton, that
woman was as certainly the murderess
of Gerald Brooks as though she had
slain him with her own hands, for she
blighted his hopes and ruined his peace
and lured him on with her false deceit
full smile, and her glorious beauty, until
he declared his love and cast his heart
at her feet, only to be laughed at and
told scornfully that she was on the eve
of marriage with descrepit old million
aire. "Now Miss !Delorme's favollte per-
fume--so Gerald had told me-was rose
geranium. She wore the flowers fire.
quently; its scarlet spike glowing in vi
vid relief in the braids of her jet black
hair. Somehow I came to associate
the two-the woman and the flower
which so uHaccountably disiked, and
feeling sprang up in my heart for Miss
Delorme which grew and fourished like
the blossom itself-a feeling of strong
aversion.
Sand SO time passed, and poor Gerald
was daily fed with false hopes and illus
ions until at last the blow fell. Had /
been III his place when the knowledge of
her baseness came to me, should have
spurned her as a noxious reptile from
my path; dut Gerald was not made of as
stern stuff as I am, and SO he could not
recover from the shock. Obi Mrs.
Warburton it was an awful blow to me
when they told me the dreadful truth
that Gerald Brookes had taken his own
lifeI
'1t all occurred in the fair south, where
he was travelling. sent at once for his
body-poor murdered boy! It came. he
looked like a marble statue lying there
white. cold and dead his hands folded
over the heart that had beaten with true
and faithful love for the woman who was
the cause of all this, and clasped in his
dead hands I found spray of rose ger
anium which I tore from his grasp; l
could not see his body desecrated by
an, thing she had touched or cared for.
From that hour I have hated the Odor
and sight of the blossom with greater
intensity than ever, it may be childish
and weak in me; if so. [ confess my
weakness, but I cannot resist it.
He paused and rested b1s handsome
nead on one white, shapely hand. Harry
Penryth was young and wealthy, and
many a woman had endeavored to
awaken responsive chord in his heart.
But although he moved in gay society
and was courteous all and attentive to
some. no woman had ever really touched
his heart until he meet sweet Lily
Moreton. But Ethel Warburton, the
rich young widow, loved him with 6
,oosH rri1d ahsorbino Dassion which car