The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1886-03-13

and at last danced with delight before the
old stone well.
Like a well in an old fairy story, NAM
ma" she exclaimed as she described it. SIT
makes me feel as though we really ought to
find an old castle somewhere to match it.
Just the well for trysting place"
"If remember rightly, it has been an un-
lucky well enough for the Doren women"
said the widow.
sTell me the story, mother" cried Katha-
rine.
'sNo: idle tales like that are best untold"
said the widow. mo doubt it is very good
cold water but when when you meet your
sweetheart, hope you won't be at the well,
but under your mether's eyes, in the house"
Katharine laughed.
''The sweetheart must come, first she
said, and began to help her mother do the
homework.
But she kept thinking of the well and that
evening at dark she took from the shelf in
the kitchen, pitcher, quaint as the house
itself, and without saying anything to her
mother. ran down the garden path. 1t was
two hundred years from the day on which
her ancestress, the first lost Katherine, had
thus gone to the old stone well-two hun
dred years to the day and hour. if this, the
eighth Katherine had but known it. But she
did not
She tripped along to the well swinging the
old blue pitcher in her hand. She reached
it and bent over the curb.
A dim reflection of her own face greeted
her.
"How high the water isl' she said. Il
can reach it with the pitcher" and bent low
er still.
But failing to reach the water, she sat the
pitcher ON the curb, and caught the chain
which held the bucket.
On the infant it seemed to her the stone
satyr behind the fountain darted his head
forward and rolled his great eye. and at the
same instant great hands seized her arms
and dragged her downwards.
The poor girl struggled and tried to scream
The water was in her eyes, her ears and her
mouth. The blood rushed to her head. Still
the great hands held her, until suddenly
she found herself leaving the water. She
stood in great cave of white stone, with
stalactites hanging from the roof, and the
thing that held her she could not see, for it
was behind her.
The stalactites glittered like diamonds !;
they draped the entrance to another cave.
This, however, as she was still pushed for
ward, she saw to be gorgeous with pearls
and opals and sea gems of all sorts. In its
midst, under sparkling canopy, lay beau
| tiful young being like man, but more ra-
diant, more splendid-a man whose eyes
were jewels, whose teeth were pearls, and
| and smiled. And now for the first time the
| stranger being who held her spoke:
"My prince" he said, 81 bring you an
eighth katherine
| And the girl, looking around, saw the stone
| features of the sculptured satyr behind the
well.
"Katherinep' repeated the being he had
| addressed. "A pretty Katherine, too-young,
fresh, lovely. Katie, mine, welcome to my
palace. All that you can ask for shall be
yours, and you my queen"
There was subtle power in his eyes. A
strange, mesmeric influence seemed to draw
her towards him. 1t was like that with
which the snake charms the bird.
But at the moment she heard strange,
| futtering of signs, and looking about her
| saw the figures of seven women, all old and
bent, sitting at sevens pinning wheels. They
seemed to be of stone, but as she looked,
they sighed again, and each turned into a
white dove that came futtering towards
her.
The breeze they made with their wings
seemed to dispel the enchantment the man
with the jewel-like eyes had cast about her.
Let me go!'' she cried. ''In the name of
Heaven, let me go home to my mother"
She forced herself into the outer cave,
thence into the cold water of the well, call
ing on all the holy names she knew mean
while.
Again her breath deserted her, the water
rushed into her eyes and ears, but blindly
feeling about she caught the bucket that
dropped into the water after her. Above
! her at the top of the we'll, the blessed blue
sky was visible.
AT that instant a head blotted it out. A
man, a laborer going home from his work
z had paused there to drink, and the next mo-
ment she lay senseless and pallid on the
grass beside the well.
When she came to herself she told her sto-
~. Some said that she had only had one of
those visions which the drowning are said to
have, and that the cold well had its source
in some hidden cave whittier the water at
times had power to draw any object on it's
surface, and some grew pale, and shuddered
as they thought of the seven stone RATHER
ines at then stone spinning wheels. But the
widow Doren never said what she thought
she only caused mason to bring great
fagstone to the well, and cover it, cement it.
and seal it up forever.
THE FRENCH CROWN JEWELS.