Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1885-04-09
LOVE VS.. FALSEHOOD.


would spare you the pain, if any way,
with honor, I could do so. Child, your
father loved me and left you to my care.
Can / see you wronged, and stand ST.
lently by? You come of a proud race,
and simple and gentle as | know you to
be, / know also the Carleton pride lies
dormant within you.
Halbert Astor had spoken the truth,
and Helene Carleton felt he had done
so. She was proud, not with arrogance
or hauteur but with sweet, grave,
womanly pride, pride that lay buried
beneath an almost childish simplicity
of manner.
She was very lovely, this blue-eyed
girl, who stood listening with paling
face to the story of herloyer' S falseness,
the story told by this man who loved
her so madly himself.
Her thoughts strayed back now to
the evening he had told her his love
the day he had pleaded as a man might
plead for life itself, and she had an
swered him gravely, gently, but decid
eddy, No" Her heart was another's S,
she had acknowledged to his passionate
questioning.
She raised her eyes to his face now,
and he felt his heart grow cold at the
look of pain in their shadowy depths.
An, Heaven, what would he not give
to be loved as GleDdon Withers was
loved by this girl, whom out of all the
world his soul coveted!
How lovely she was, with her wavy
pale-gold hair and lily-fair complexion,
tinted with rose-pink on the softly
rounded cheeks, with her curYing mouth
so ripe and red, her dimpled chin and
slender girlish form, her stately little
head set SO gracefully on her rounded
neck!
She remembered his love-story and
passionate pleading, but it was no
warning to q nature SO pure and true as
hers.
If he loved her, he would save her
paint would make him more careful
of wounding her unnecessarily.
The story he told her was this: that
her lover-her promised husband-was
looked upon as the sutton of another.
He read her quotation from letter
in which Glendon was spoken of. Per-
fectly unwilling was the writer, how
ever, of the damage his idle pen would
do.
He was stopping in the same city
with Glendon, but not, however, in the
same house; fate had not favored him
so far, but had located Glendon in the
home of girl as beautiful as ever was
maiden before.
And Glendon was infatuated
smiles dazzled him. The light of her
eyes was his heaven.
At least, such was his friends iudg-
ment on the effect of Leonetta's beauty
on Glendon Withers.
How near he was right, how far he
was wrong. we might decide ourselves
if we saw Leonetta Meredith and Glen
don together, but to do that we must
cross the Channel, for Glendon is abroad
in the gayest of all gay cities, the queen
of music and mirth, the city of light and
laughter and sparkling champagne
well-beIoved Paris.
We cross the water and see them to-
gether, and what is our decision? We
can come to none
LeOnetta is beautiful, with a brilliant
dark beauty of the Spanish type
Her forehead is low and broad, her
nose short and straight, her mouth
curved and dimpled; her eyes magniti-
cent, deep as wells, and dark as night
now slumbering in quiet dreamy
beauty, then flashing with passion or
glowing with delight
She is about twenty-certainly no
more; but her form has every curve and
grace of perfect womanhood.
But fate, prolific in all gifts where
beauty Of face and form was concerned,
had not otherwise been kind to this
girl, with herpassionate soul that longed
for wealth and amusement, and the
homage her beauty would bring her
had she been placed in a position worthy
of it.
But Providence had placed her life in
z very narrow groove, and her soul re-
belled against it.
But now she met this handsome young
Englishman, with his frank grey eyes,
his broad white brow and CHEEKY smile,
and-Well, to do her Justice, she loved
him; but had she not, still she would
have exercised every power to win him,
tor the wealth and position she had
Learned he possessed.
Men are not very strong at best, and
Leonetta was more than passing fair,
the pleasure of her dark and subtle
smiles.
Not however, that he was false to
Helene; that was something he never
dreamed of; but he would take the good
the gods sent him, and enjoy the gla-
NOR of Leonetta' S dark beauty.
And then-then, in the very midst OF
more than FOOLS paradise, letter
came from Helene.
He held it in his hand unopened for
moment, a swift repentance for she
moments he had bssked in the light of
Leonetta's eyes filling his soul, along
with the decision to tell the dark-eyed
beauty of his engagement.
Alas! alas! he had not that story to
tell her after the letter was opened,
for his face actually blanched when he
opened it.
Opened it to read the words:
81 give you back your freedom. Iwish
no oxo1ooa+;Op &c aap oiva mona