The Warner weekly sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1885, 1885-07-24
SHE UNDERSTOOD.
The last Chapter Of a story.
BY EVELYN THORPE.

BY EVELYN THORPE
For the New York Mercury.
DR.. Irving was in some respects a
peculiar Other men were not al
ways ure that they liked him. With
women it was generally different. They
did like him. There was no possible
doubt of that. They maintained that
he was handsome; a statement which
never failed to call forth from their
husbands or lovers an emphatic protest
and they still more vehemently affirmed
that his manner IN q siekroom, the
stimulating magnetism of his presence,
the soothing influence of his strong yet
gentle touch, were unique and un-
rivaled and more than sufficiently ac-
counted for his extraordinary suscess
in his professionals which the hus-
bands would again, below their breath,
pish ard pshaw.
DIR. Irving was ~thirty-nine and still
unmarried. 1t could be said Of him, as
in the cas- of sundry young women,
that this was not from lack of chance.
To those to whom he ever spoke on the
subject he would laugghingglyy assert that
his profession was his mistress, and
that he should never marry at all. But
there were very few persons indeed to
whom DR.. Irving unburdened himself
as to his inmost thoughts. Perhaps
there were none at all. He was snot q
communicative man. Some Of his lady
patients were sure ne had o history;
there was something mysterious about
him, the more imaginative would aver.
Had DR.. Irving known Of these things
he would have been amused; but they
never camet to his ears. His brougham,
with the superb pair of grays, now
drew up before his door and he came in
for his dinner and evening Office hours.
AS his key turned in the lock a shad-
ow passed across the curtain that yelled
the lighted interior from the passer-by,
and a small, slight, dark, pale girl,
scarcely more than q child, pressed
close against him the moment the door
opened.
well Nita," he said kindly, and
bent down to kiss her on her forehead.
The girl had his hand tightly clasped
in both her own narrow, slim ones, and
was looking up at him with the dumb,
pathetic eyes of a faithful dog. She
had no beauty save her eyes. Those
were large, black, full, luminous, with
an intensity of expression that some
times half-startled and half-amused
strangers who CHANGED to see her. The
rest Of the face, with its swarthy skin,
its irregular features, IA quite plain.
She was q singular little thing, this
ward of the doctors, whom be had
brought to his home twelve years be-
fore, after an absence Of some time IN
Europe. q fatherless and motherless
HID, the daughter OF Italian parents.
People understood that DIR. Irving had
taken the weird little foreign girl under
his protection 90 fuIfiii the last wishes
of a dead friend, and then they we'll
nigh forgot her existence. She was SO
quiet. SO mirthless and almost speech
less at all times, so unlike other chill
dren in every way, that it was not dlf-
ficult to do so. And so Mia had grown
up to the threshold Of womanhood, ana
had had few or no companions o.
her age, but spen 3 the long days
in the quiet house on Lexington avenue
In the company OF the aocboI %
h~ousekeeper, all rolled up In q ball on
the lounge in the library with . book
on her knees.
Something in her face that night as
she sat opposite to him at the dlnner
table, perhaps the fact that her cheeks
had q flush of color unusual to them,
which Frightening her skin, made ner
look for the moment almost pretty,
causing the Edoctor to look attentively
at her an instant and then to say laugh
ingly:
why, Nita, you're getting TO be z
woman, ana d nice looking little woman
too. We shall have to be hunting up =
husband for you very loon.
The girl droppedh her fork, opened nsr
lips as if to speak, suddenly got up ,anu'
without uttering a word, rushed nom
thereon.
Doctor Irving looked after her IN
considerable surprise for Q momens,
Nita had always been odd; but she nau
never done anything Of this SORT Pc
fore. II was Edwin Irying's way az