Crawford avalanche. (Grayling, Mich.) 1879-19??, 1885-11-12
CHAPTER III.

III.
a. =, 1t is six years afterward, and Della is
Della Churchill still. 1t had not need
ed much to make so proud o man as
Maurice Arnold withdraw suit he had
scarcely yet ventured to urge. A dis
dainful smile or two, q few bitter words,
and he had left the Chase, and Della
was left to her sorrow and her pride.
The first pain is over now. The heal
ing years have touched the wound, and
perhaps only Della herself remembers
that it is there. Are there not some
scarcely seen even by the nearest eyes,
but that start and throb with a dull
pain that will only cease at the touch of
a greater healer than even time? Miss
Churchill bears hers bravely enough,
fronting the world with smiles, and
tongue that grows little bitter as the
years roll on.
She hears nothing of Maurice Ar
mold. She wonders sometimes if he
has married Elaine" but she does not
even know if he is alive or dead, till
one morning she sees his name in an
obscure corner of the Times. There is
to be an inquiry into the condition of
mines and miners, and he is mentioned
in connection with it. Yes, she remem-
bers now; he had something to do with
she never quite under
stood-but Slight as her knowledge of
the fact had been it was sufficient to
make the heading of the paragraph
attract her eye. She saw his
name no more in the paper, but
q little while afterward a report
was published that was reviewed in o
scientific magazine; a report that bore
Arnold's name, but that con-
cerned so limited number of readers
that the libraries would none of it, and
Delia's anxious ewes could discern no
copy of it on the tables of her friends.
Miss Churchill meant to
read it. It could harm no one-not
even Elaine-and it would, perhaps,
still the importunate longing that was
born of the unbearable silence.
"There is book / want to see," she
said to a literary friend, "and they
haven't it in the library"
"What is it called ?" was the not un-
natural question; but Della was dumb.
She had not realized how impossible it
would be to name book so unlikely
for a young lady's reading without
arousing curiosity as to her interest in it,
airy the British Museum, Suggested
the man of letters, as willing as every
one else to oblige the wealthy Miss
Churchill.
Having obtained ticket for the read
ng-room, Della went one morning with
4 curious feeling Of agitation, such as
one might feel at meeting with long
ost friend. 1t would be like meeting
Maurice again, to read the words that
we're the offspring of his brain, and her
hand shook nervously as she showed |
her ticket and went into the great read |
ng-room that is so we'll known to liter |
ary people. Miss Churchill was not |
literary, and it was all new and strange |
10 her, but she made her way to the |
clerks at the central counter, without |
wasting time In observation. She was
quite unreasonably agitated, and made |
ler request in q fluttered whisper.
Report on Mines?" said the clerk, |
with distinctness that sounded almost |
brutal. "If you will go and sit down
1t that table, it will be brought to you."
She filed up the paper given her,
md made her way to an unoccuaied |
seat, and in tho stiffness of the place
'he managed to recover herself enough
20 look about her. Nearly all the read
,rs were men, and quaint-looking peo-
pie many of them we're. There we're a
ew women, chiefly with short hair, and
1ad compilations, and shabby gowns.
md they looked at Delia's velvet and
urs as working bees might look at a
gorgeous butterfly that had strayed into |