The Arizona sentinel., 1886-08-21


 than customary.
 "Vane is going away for little while-out of town.
 "Going to some fashionable place, l suppose, with some of his fashionable friendS!'' cried the invalid. Then, as her sister made no reply: If he saved up his money instead of spending it this way you could have been married before this. But I always told you, Bell, you were too weak with him. What did you say to him about his going away?"
 Nothing" replied the girl, wearily.
 'Let Bell alone, Jess," said Toms soft, slow voice, from the depths of an armchair, in which he sat in a state of neglige equal to his wife's. ''The child s tired; let her go to bed"
 Bell cast grateful glance toward her brother-in-law' large, mild face. She and poor, unlucky, always-out-of-a-posi- ton, and if the truth must be confessed, lazy Tom were the best of friends. It was not the first time that he had shielded her with delicacy that never failed from her sisters well-meant but narrowing onslaughts.
 Bell crept up stairs. Oh, those golden summer days down by the sea when first she and Vane Stephenson had met and where he had asked her to be his wife-how far. far off they were! When Vane Stephenson alighted at the little station of - Springs the fol- lowing evening his spirits rose with a sense of pleasurable exhilaration. He had had some doubts and also some compunctions about coming-for what what reason he himself best knew-but they evaporated now. The piazzas of the hotel were full of graceful forms in thin dresses and a band within was playing dance music. Vane repaired the damages inflicted upon his appear ance by travel and then sent his card to a person registered, with his mother, as ''Mrs. and Miss Lawton and maid"
 Miss Lawton was dressed that evening, as was customary with her, into the nearest approach to beauty in any way compatible with the materials granted her (not too lavishly) by nature. Her French dressmaker had once remarked, with the approval of an artist whose efforts are too often wasted upon pur- blind generation, that Miss Lawton had the gout somewhat tapageur. but that she was interesting to dress, neverthe- less, because she was so responsive. In some way Vane felt grateful to her at that moment for looking so well. It seemed to put him more at rights with himself.
 ''I did not expect you," she said with little laugh that in subtle fashion con- tradicted her words.
 ''Did you not?' in his impressive tone. You might have known I should come-after you had said I would not be quite unwelcome.
 She sat down and drew a gaudy Ori- ental shawl about her shoulders. She was quite harmonies from the top of her artistically coifed head to her nar- row slipper-tip. A delicate suggestion of a perfume-so few women know how to use scents-was waited toward him by each slow motion of her scarlet feather fan. Voices and subdued laugh ter came from the other end of the pi- aga, mingled with the strains of the waltz then in.vogpe. Up in the sky full moon was hanging and low wind blew from the south. It was very pleasant, altogether. So pleasant that the city, with its hot pavements and its din, its harrassing documents from picture-dealers, and its unpaid bills, faded quite away into the dim recesses of Beauty Vain's'' memory. His monetary complications, in fact, seemed to assume far less pressing aspect-in the propinquity of an heiress kindly dis posed.
 There are certain potentialities of riches in the atmosphere that make poverty, to the most indigent artist, ap- pear altogether a far less present and personal matter. Not that Vane Ste- phenson directly contemplated the pos sibility Of ever proving untrue to Bell. Bell was dear little thing, and there was world of character hidden be- meath that delicate body of hers. She was wrapped up in her love for him also. No; he would not wrong her. But his ease and pleasure-loving artists temperament was agreeably caressed and Stimulated by that atmosphere of luxury and artifciality in which the Lawtons and such as they moved and had their being. The fiattery his talent and his personal good looks brought him in such circles fed his vanity de- lightfully. It was in his nature to go with the current. And the current here happened to exercise particularly pleasant compelling power.
 The next day was one of these vouch- safed occasionally to mortals that they may know how the earth looked when the world was young and ''sang with her sister spheres. A day of long, rare, dream-like hours. A bright blue morning, with a hay veil over lakes and mountains, a drowsy noon, 8 still afternoon, spellbound under its slanting shadows; pale moonlit evening, redo lent with faint odors and full of myste- rious sounds, as of a myriad of voices of whispering nature.
 They had been off on a coaching party and gone all day.
 When Mrs Lawton went to her room that night she was pensive and ab- stracted.
 Don't flirt too much with Vane Stephenson, Rhoda," she said to her daughter. ''Of course he's charming fellow-in his way-and all that. But don't push matters too far"
 ''Flirt with him!'' repeated Miss Law ton in wide-awake wonder.
 "Yes, flirt with him." Don't play innocence. You firted outrageously with him all day. If you lead him on in that way he will be proposing next. And you know how your father would approve your marrying poor manr
 Miss Lawton made no reply. She smiled a little behind the shielding screen of hair the maid was letting down over her shoulders. Miss Law