The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1886-01-23

oPPosite MS ulVlnlCy, follow up MS ad-
vantage and contrive an acquaintance,
as he easily might have donep The
answer is: Precisely because he was
Arthur Wyllis. Retiring to fault, he
was good deal of dreamer by nature,
and he was quite capable of romancing
about girl for weeks, until she sudden
ly disappeared from his horizon, leav-
ing him with his awakened sensibilities
thrown back upon himself. How long
in the present case he might have gone
on in this fantastic way it is impossible
to tell, for one day, several weeks later,
something happened which startled him
out of his natural world. This was the
robbery and attempted murder of
lady occupying the second-foor apart
ment in clearinghouse not many
squares distant. The man had as
cended by means of porch,
and entered through window
communicating with a balcony. 1t
was dusk of a winter night, at an hour
when the inmates were presumably at
their evening meal, and the burglar no
doubt expected to find the rooms empty.
AS it happened, however, the lady who
occupied the first which he entered was
indisposed, and was lying half asleep on
a lounge. The gas was turned down very
low, and as she was in an alcove out of
the range of the window. the burglar
did not suspect her peSence until he was
fairly in the room. When he did, he
probably thought he would not have his
labor for his pains. At any rate the
lady, in her subsequent account of the
affair, said that something made her
open her eyes to see man standing by
her toilet-table, with his hands on her
gold watch; that she sprang forward
with scream and caught at the watch
which had been the gift of dead friend
that the burglar tried to make his
escape, and, when she still chung to him
in her endeavor to get possession of the
watch, struck her savagely on the head
until, at the approach Of the people who
had been alarmed by her cries, he
wrenched himself violently from her hold
and disappeared by The same way he
had come.
1t was fashionable boarding -house,
and the lady was well-known in society,
and the whole affair naturally made a
great sensation in the city. Wyllis,
however, had his own special reasons
for feeling excited about it. Did not
the Shadow also live on the second
floor, and though there was no porch to
the house, was there not a trellis, by
means of which an evil-disposed and
tolerably agile fellow could gain an en-
tranceP When Wyllis came home on
the evening following the burglary, it
was with beating heart He had
heard the details, as given by the daily
papers, discussed all day long, and his
ready imagination had varied and ex-
banded them to suit the case he had in
mind. As soon as he came in sight of
the window he looked up with eager,
anxious haste. But there was the be-
loved shadow peacefully outlined upon
the still, white curtain, and stirring
only with the movements of the hands
as they went up and down the key
board in the exigencies of the music.
Wyllis drew long breath of relief, as
he turned the latch-key in his own door
and went up stairs.
For few evenings all went well, but
on the fourth the questioning eyes of
this self-appointed guardian saw a
sight that chilled his blood. He looked
up as usual, and-what! just above the
unsuspecting Shadow, distinctly drawn
upon the smooth, white surface is an
other head, and two hands that slowly,
cautiously descend until they reach the
girls shoulders, where they fasten in o
vise-like grip. Turning with start
she struggles TO rise, she throws
up her hands in vain appeal,
her head drops backward, and she falls
fainting from her seat
In far less time than it takes to tell it,
all this has passed before Arthur Willis
agonized gaze, and shaken off the hor-
rOr that stiffens him, he dashes across
the street, through the door standing
ajar, past some one in the vestibule,
and up the unlighted stairs to the pas
sage-way on the second floor. Gaining
the Hateful door with bound, he stops
short to recover breath and listen Not
a sound! Absolute, awful silence! Sick
at heart for what this stiffness NAV
mean, he filings the door wide open
and is confronted in the brilliantly
lighted room by two figures who spring
to their feet and stare at him. There
are suspicious signs which make it prob
able thathe has interrupted a love scene,
and it is certain that the girl who now
stands looking at him in surprise and
confusion is not his Mabel!
Her companion was the first to re-
cover himself. "What the--what do
you mean anyway, by bursting in here
like cyclone ?" he said angrily.
I-beg your pardon" began Wyllis,
and stopped short, blushing like girl
over his absurd position. Then seeing
that something more in the way of ex-
PLANTATION was eXpected-"I-I thought
it was MURDER" he added.
Thought what was murder ?" de-
manded the young man, contemptuous-
ly.
"Your-your-shadows-" stammer-
ed Wyllis.
The other looked as if in doubt wheth-