New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1886-04-21

Bette was promenading the piazza
that evening after dinner, and before
the concert and the dancing. He
wasn't q dancing man; he was only a
millionaire, we'll born and educated,
q quiet, middle-age gentleman ofunas-
Stunning manners. She flashed me
glance as she passed that might have
put out the evening star. He sat be-
side her at the concert; he went with
her next morning to the archery; he
rode beside her all the way to the
Wells; he sat beside her as they sailed
! to the Red Reef Light. He walked
with her the next day after dinner,
but this time they stepped down and
away from the lighted piazza, down
the pebbly walk, down the rocks and
out on the sands and along the beach
in the starlight. When Bette came
in she was drenched with dew; but she
| looked divlnely happy-too divinely
happy to notice the dark disapproval
on the brows of all the mammas.
And thenext morning Mr.. Dunrobin
was gone-he and his trunks, and his
horses, and his yacht and his man. It
was llttleyellow wreck Of Bette that
came into my room and threw herself,
face down, on my lounge, and sobbed
out the story.
"Well'' said, soothingly, feeling it
no time for a homily, and pitying the
little wretch for all, ''there are plenty
left"
"There's nobody!" she cried. 'There's
nobody. I'd just as lief you'd know
it as not. IL love him! And oh,
the worst ofthis is, deserve it! But 1
can't let these people see. I must 60
on just the same. "I'll put little
rouge on. My hearts broken. Pm
dead, dead. dead. l shall look in the
glass while Pm doing it, though, and
say to myself, And Bette, give this
cheek a touch of red; one need not, sure,
look ugly, though ones dead But
let me hide here this morning. Have
you got any rouge?"
Nobody would have dreamed that
Bette was disappointed, broken
hearted, dead, or anything OF these
that night. She was recklessly, des-
perately gay. Dancing on the edge Of
the volcano, she called it. And so
she was the next night, and the next,
and for a week running. till all the
chaperons in the house were getting
wild about her and expostulating with
me-and that was the way I learned
that l was supposed to be her chaper-
on-and I couldn't think where it
would end. And then she went to bed
sick for a, couple OF days, and then l
said to myself that this was the end,
anyway And then one morning. when
thought she was in bed still, and was
just getting ready to go and see her,
she burst into my room, radiant, rosy
er, and caught me, and covered my
old face with caresses. ooh, I must
kiss somebody" cried she. ''And he
isn't here. And I must tell you. I
can't let anybody see it, actually see
1T, it's too preclous!"
And it was letter from Mr.. Dun
robin, and in it he told her frankly
that he had run away from her, If she
chose to call it so, because he felt there
would be no happiness for him, or her
either, in a marriage with such differ
ence in age and taste and temporal
ment. And now he had discovered
that there could beno happiness with
out it. And he was coming back to
learn his fate.
"Oh!" she cried, bursting into tears,
"it's perfectly dreadful that Pm so
wicked I'm not fit for him! Idon't
deserve him! I ought to be punished!
shall be-oh, shall be! shall tell
him everything. shall tell him just
how mannuvred and schemed and
plotted and
"Bettie, it will finish everything
cit ought to. l can't help it if it
does. won't let him take me believ-
ing Pm all Pm not If there's anoth-
er world, he wouldn't know me in it,
And, oh, I'm afraid he wouldn't want
to! Oh, isn't it too bad l should be so
wicked, when I'd die to do him good.
And perhaps the best good can do
him is to die"
| But when that night she came in
from the beach, dripping with dew
again, and hanging on Mr.. Dunrobin's
arm, her face pale and shining as a
star, she stopped and bent over me,
facing a line OF angry mammas, and
kissed my forehead.
"Well, what did he say, Bette" !
whispered.
"He loves me, he adores me" muir
INJURED Bette. .:He-he said he didn' t
care. Harper Bazaar