Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1883-09-18

DuG can throw my dark shawl over
it. y and she did.
Helen Froment, meantime Rubens'
Helen, continued to smile and be anna
bic. l asked the other Helen to make
me little copy of that bright face. and
to leave it where could tip il ~ with
my weak hand, and Look ut It 4 little
nearer. Ehis she did, but when tried
10 grasp it. / found out how weak was.
/ found that / could not even master
that frail piece of paper.
= You must remember. said Helen.
You are still very i'll, y and she laid
I the sketch away in drawer of my 1t
tie table.
Then l began to get better, I was
strong, convalescent I returned in
thought to the world, and with M into
the land of health came the patient
girl who had now become my daily
companion. She did not take all the
care OF me. Two men seemed TO do
that. / could not exactly tell where or
when they came in, but Just about with
the disappearance of Arthur, / should
say--that vague, uncertain period, not
far from the time when Helen came in.
Somehow, | did not care TO ask ques-
tons. Life was delightful enough,
with the music, the paint NO, the
poetry, which this accomplished girl
brought into it. The other people made
disagreeable noises, and were not al
| together agreeable to feeble nerves.
! My men nurses tramped heavily and
! tangled glasses, and the doctor was,
although the most respectable of his
species, what I should call loud man.
Helen made no noise; she was the very
essence of stiffness, except when she
sang OF talked, and that was music
which is not noise. Discord is what
hurts us. Helen was all concord.
Noise is discord. 1t seems to me that
this state of things had gone on for
weeks, and that began to know Helen
as a man ought 10 know a woman
| whom he shall love and marry. | be-
gan to watch for fitting opportunity to
| tell her that l loved her, that she was
! the being of all others to make me
shappy. / owed it to Helen to tell her
! so, and felt that we must make some
excuse to our friends for being SO much
7 together, that even the doctor might
/ think it strange, that, perhaps, Arthur
-yes-Arthur. Where GC0S AYthatr?
But when | was ready to frame these
sentences, Helen always evaded me;
! sometimes a tinkling of that ridiculous
bell-and the men nurses came in
sometimes the doctor himself, never
Arthur.
The parlor began to look unlike the
paFlor The piano was covered over
with q white cloth, and bottles stood
upon it. Nothing seemed changed on
the walls but the cloth which had hid
den the Cenci.
That had fallen, and suddenly the fig
ure seemed to bend out of the frame,
and to nod to me.
''Helen!" I shrieked- "Helen! Hide
the Cenci from me-
Her cool hand was over my eyes in
moment, and the vision passed away.
% Poor, troubled brain,n I heard her
say, as she rubbed my forehead with
her soft hand until went to sleep.
1t would be absurd to try to follow
this love affair Suffice to say we got
| to understand each other, and Helen
! promised to marry me. We had of
course to wait until [ should recover my
health, which was as yet uncertain. I
could not disguise it to myself that. al
! though had hours of health, that the
| bottles, the doctor, the bed, and the two
men muses. remained.
Helen always said patience, dearest,
! patience! ali will be well. / will wait
for you. You have long summer be-
fore you, in which you must recover.
! Meantime let us 90 on with the read
| ing, the music, the painting. Helen
was sweet and consistent, and I obeyed
her.
And then we constructed our whole
future life. She was to be my econom-
/ zeal help-mate; with her little savings
and mine we could afford modest
home
We would begin plainly and live
! cheaply. She would still ply her brush
and l would Dig away down in Wall
! street, but we should be together. We
had our love as d splendid capital.
! That was invested Tor us, and with that
we could not be poor.
These were days and nights full of
! happiness. Helen seemed to need no
sleep. She was often by my side at
that dread hour of three in the morning,
wiping the dews from my brow and
! helping to account for the strange
noises. We came to the conclusion
that the periodic dropping of the crow
bar was some midnight assassin of
sleep repairing the elevated railroad.
The little tinkling bell, we thought,
might be some eat entangled in a net
work of resounding metal, the descend
ant of Ben the Cat, whoever he might
be. Helen was the only person who
had attended me through my illness,
who ever tried to explain, and to help
me out of my intellectual maZes. The
| others ignored them.
1t was the power of love, that one
] Il Il