Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1884-02-01

uOn, n requlreQ q council OF all the
Fulfords, including a few friends.
Bangs's idea was much applauded,
likewise Towards prodigious sharpness
in picking it up.
Cameron might go to the limbo of
penniless lovers. Nobody cared. He
wasn't a stag.
Now for it! On whom were they to
try their new-found system? Old Full
ford talked a great deal, but all he re-
ally said was that the thing ought to be
simple enough; the girl was good look
ing, as all allowed; and he gave her ten
thousands pounds.
At last it became evident that the ac-
tual marking of the quarry was beyond
the Fulfordian Imagination, and there
was q general call upon an old Lady
Wall-a woman who in her day hooked
husbands for three plainish Miss Walls
with much cleverness-tabe up the
word.
WELL she said, 81 can't see the
difficulty"
So much superiority provoked q muir
mur Of surprised approval. There was
a silence. Then Mr.. Fulford said:
mo, really; can't you?"
"Have you ever heard" pursued her
ladyship, "of Hoist with his own Pc
tard?'"
"No; the Fulfords only know Shakes
peare from going occasionally to the
Lyceum Theater, and as they seldom
listen-talking a good deal, and look
ing more 1.-THE people than the stage
their knowledge of our greatest bard is
of the most limited kind.
"Well, then, Caught in his own
trap?'" asked Lady Wall, bringing
down her language to the meanest ca
pacity with i~ll-disguised contempt.
ooh yes, we know that cried all
the Fulfords, quite proudly.
"Ihen. there you have it," concluded
their councillor. "What say you to my
plan?"
No, not a Fulford understood her.
She very nearly swore.
"Dear. DEAR" she burst forth; "you
are all very stupid"
They took this for a good joke, and
laughed quite pleasantly.
"Don't you see that the very man
stag, as You call him-who is waiting
to be stalked, is no other than this same
noble viscount, Lord Bangs himself?"
hcr laQYShlp.
So bold a idea was sucha bombshell
to the Fulford brain that it very nearly
burst it.
Il
There was very little time to be lost,
for it was already the end of June.
The fuss, the hurry, the want of all
dclicacy and disguise, which would
have proved fatal in so many cases,
were just what favored the Fuifords in
the pursuit of a mani beg his pardon,
a lord-who was knocking under sim
ply, as he had before expressed it, to
that traitorous friend Howard, to escape
for life from the %clatter, the row, the
untiring and transparent stratagem of a
chase where the hunters know neither
pause nor encouragement, ignore alike
both fatigue, as concerns themselves, or
pity for the poor creatures they pursue.
Within three weeks the marriage was
arranged. One spectator of this
strange yet common chase-our friend
Allan Cameron-looked on in the inno-
enc of his soul, at first with incred-
ulitv, then with amazement, at last with
alarm. He had not been enough in the
first society to have lost his sense of
right and wrong.
When he finally realized the position,
he resolved, as any brave young fellow
would, not to see his life wrecked, and,
what to him came far before that, not
to suffer tamely that the girl he loved
should be sold like a Greek slave to the
highest bidder, without making one
bold effort to set matters right-to keep
what he had He sought and OBJ
tanned, without opposition from any
quarter, an interview with M%illicent
alone.
"What is the meaning of this?" he
said, under his breath, with a desperate
effort to stick to the resolution he had
made that he would be quiet and gen
tie throughout. They were quite far
from n another, parted by almost the
entire breadth of the room.
I'm very sorry, very sorry, indeed,
Allan, but it can't be helped,' she be-
gan.
Sorry! you say you are sorry-you
still call me by the old name, and yet
you say it can't be helped"
"Oh, l am sorry you insisted on see
ing me, it can do no good" said she.
"But l am in the dark, do you hear?
You loved me-you love me still
know it"
II do. There, 1 will tell you so hon.
estly."
"Then why, by all that's sacred, are
you marrying another man?"
Listen to me- and she told him as
we'll as she could how she must get out
of the way of her two sisters-be
"shunted'' her brothers called it. How
she was not preferring a rich match
without love to a poor one with it; but
that her marriage with Lord Bangs was
by sacrificing her own feelings to duty,
at least possible, whereas a union with
Allan was imposslble-at all events for
very many years.
"Oh, don't mistake me-" she contin-
ued. If ! had only my own happiness
to consult"
''But that makes it all the worse" he
urged. ''If you told me your feelings
for me had changed"
"Thcv never can"
"And does Lord Bangs know this?"
II told him l was very fond of YOU,
and could not pretend 1 was in love
with him"