Madison times. (Tallulah, Madison Parish, La.) 1884-1???, 1885-12-12

I
me; now You shall sieep."
The girl, shaken by hushed sobs
turned from the silvery night, and
glided into the house like a shadow.
Ere morning dawned. the soul Of
Elmar Livingstone had gone, where
human eye could not follow its flight,
free of the clogging clay, to its judg-
ment.
And, as untraceable, it would seem,
as the spirit of the man who had
wronged her, yet guarded her youth,
Lena Munroe had also gone with the
night, leaving no token behind her,
bidding no farewell.
Six years later the accident occur
red on the midnight train which filled
the hospital of G--withm moaning life,
or crushed and shapeless bodies, III
which was left scarcely strength to
sigh.
The nurses went from pallet to pal
let, holding bandages, aiding to bind
up great gaping wounds, shrinking
from the sight OF severed arms, but
putting personal feeling away before
the great needs that met them.
One nurse. with sweet, blue eyes,
tender and pitiful, gave a low cry at
last, us the surgeon, whose assistant
she was, paused beside cot on which
a young man lay unconscious.
"You know him?" the surgeon asked
her, regarding her blanched face curl
ously.
She bent her head in silence, a sob
bursting from her lips.
Half an hour later he lay there I'M
der her eyes, cold and still, with strips
of linen across his bosom, a broken,
bandagcd arm, and court plaster hold
ing together the red edges of cash
that ran perilously near the temple;
and she knelt beside the cot with an
ashen pain in her young face, as she
stroked back the hair from his fore
head.
"After six years." she whispered
softly. "Oh. my loye. after six years,
during which time | have striven to
forget your face, to see it so cold and
white! But you shall be more tender
ly cared for than though you had a
sister near you; and when you are well
enough to know me, We part again"
For the crushed and wounded man
was Clarence Livingstone, the kneeling
nurse the girl to whom he had refused
his dying father to make offer of his
hand-Lena Munroe.
Long days and nights followed each
other, and Clarence walked from stu
por to mad delirium, in which he told
bis patient nurse all of which she al
ready knew. and much besides-told
her of the wealth he had vowed never
to touch, lying in his solicitors hands
for thegirl he could not trace; of strug-
Gle and trial which he had gone through
which made her blue eyes dim.
But he said no word of any woman
whose love was his guerdon,. and she
was glad that was spared her.
Once in midnight hour, when the
ward was silent and the lights low
about them, he suddenly put forth
his uninjured hand and took one of
hers; his eyes, brilliant with fever,
were fastened on her face.
"My father loved you as a daugh-
ter" he said softly, "and he told me
you loved me: but l did not believe,
and wanted him to leave me free.
Child, why did you fly from me? Did
you fear would learn to love your"
She bent her face, and tears flowed
silently down her cheeks.
IL was deliruim, she knew; but she,
who had been unable to forget, re-
membering that long hour in the ear
ly night too wildly not to again feel
some oil its the ,rshe beard him.
1t was Ap-thA-Seecf when, after a
long sleep, he Weakened to full con-
seriousness one morning at day-dawn.
The lights were low, the scene spec
trail, as his languid eyes turned from
object to object.
AT last they rested on the quiet fig
ure of his nurse, asleep in her chair,
and there they fingered.
How sweet and girlish the weary
face was, under the stiffcap,-and sad,
too, as though this life was not such
as her heart yearned for. And the
hands lying idly in her lap were SO fair
and white and slender, dainty enough
to be decked with gems, fair enough to
be kissed, but too frail and white for
tearing of linen and lifting of dying
heads, he told himself.
Then sort of memory came to him
of those soft fingers on his brow, when
it had seemed burning; OF that sweet
face bent over him in his delirium,
when he had taken it for the face of
an angel.
He had seen it before, but where?
Perhaps in one of his day dreams.
Now he would neverf forget, he told him.
self, as, his own eyes closing, he dropped
off to sleep.
1t was midday when hewaked again
and found her bending over him, and
this time he recognized her.
"Lenal" he cried, trying to put out
his hand.
BIT he was too weak. 1t fell on the
countefBane.
"You Know me?" she said softly,
turning paley.
"Iknow you, and Iwant to tell you"
he whispered, family, put with warm
glow in his eyes-"yod are an heiress;
there isno need for you to do this work.
My father"
81 know it ALL" she broke in; "and
that was why / left Lynn as | did.