Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1886-09-02
The Hour Before Dawn,
BY w. t.

first suggestion of the exquisitely sad
days of the dying glory of summer time
In the hazy, red gold atmosphere that
hung silently over lowland and lawn.
Blanche Carroll sat on the low door
step of the farmhouse that had been
her home that summer, looking out
through the twilight with wlshful eyes
that were blue as heavens dome.
Thanking-always thinking, it SEEM
ed to her, since those other days, not
yet a year gone by, when instead of be-
ing what she was now, Mrs. Pember-
toms half-assistant in the duties of the
family, half-sister, daughter, friend,
whatever one chose to call the intimate
relation that existed between them
when, instead of this, she had been
belle and heiress, whose sway was un-
disputed, whose reign had been as mag
nificently triumphant as its sudden
ending had been pitifully sharp and
bitter. .s...
She had never, in all her eighteen
years of gay joyous life, known what it
meant to have a wish ungratified-a
want, however imaginary. unfulfilled.
There had never been any lack of
ready money; there had been horses,
and carriages, and servants, at the girls
signal, and trips to the Continent when
ever the fancy seized her.
Then had come, the terrible financial
earthquake, and week after, Blanche
Carroll had learned from the lips of her
distracted father that everything must
go, even to her jewels and laces, and
costly little elegancies, so that his name
would not be dishonored for the first
time in his life.
A week after that day, which had
seemed the most dreadful of all posi-
BILE days, someone had come to her, and
added the very blackness of darkness to
her woe by telling her of how Mr.. Car
roll was dead in his Office chair-apop-
lexy or paralysis-which, was not yet
decided.
Blanche almost collapsed under that
second blow. Never having remem-
bered her mother, she had loved her
father with double intensity.
And when he was dead and buried,
the world yawned before her, with no
protecting arm between her and it
when there did not remain a hundred
pounds in all the wide world she could
call her own.
Poor Blanche!
And yet it was not the very worst.
The worst of all was Elmer West
courts detection, with scores of those
whom she had implicitly believed were
best, truest, dearest-Others whose de-
fection hurt her for the time, but whom
she learned she could readily exist
without.
But Elmer Westcourt?
He had been all that was most noble,
most perfect, grandest in masculine
human nature. To him she had look
ed with almost the reverence of a
devotee to her patron saint,
His physical beauty had commanded
her passionate admiration, his qualities
of mind had called out all her keenest
and his peculiarly master
full way had taught the girl for the first
time in her life how sweet it was to be
governed.
There had never been an engagement
between them, and yet Blanche had
been so positively sure he loved her.
She had seen it in his eyes, time and
again. She had more than once listen
ed to sweet, suggestive words he had
spoken, in his low, thrilling voice.
She had with good reason, built the
most beautiful castle of their future to-
yether, and had been only waiting his
pleasure to speak, when her trouble
came to her.
And, with all other summer friends,
he, too, had left her, without word.
a sigh, to think what she chose,
to suffer or not, as the case might be-
Then, in her distress, her sorely wound
ed pride, her desolation of soul, Blanche
had rushed away frsm London-awayI
up among the cool, green hills of Cum
berland, where she was not mistaken |
in supposing she had one friend left
Mrs. Pemberton, who although person. |
ally stranger to her, Blanche knew
mad been adear, warm friend in girl
hood days of her dead mother.
And so it came to pass that Blanche |
Carroll made her home in the tenant |
where with light, womanly
luties and pleasant responsibilities. she |
vas bravely striving to forget her bitter
oast, and the sound of Elmer West
courts voice, and the look in his eyes.
She was thinking of all this as she
at in the twilight, that cool, breezy
September night, and into the beauti-
ul blue eyes had come such a wistful-
less and heartsick woe that dear,
Mrs. Pemberton, looking up
rom her knitting, saw the misery.
sit will never, never dol" she said,
'nergetically-so much so that her
Kindly, emphatic tones brought a sud-
len dash of color to Blanche's face. ut
will never do-the way you allow your
elf to brood on things that you can't
lelp. I am really delighted to think
Tohu will be home SO soon. He will
axe you in charge, and make you give
Up these useless memories, which only
eem to make you miserable. Such a
lear, blessed old boy as my John is,
Blanche, and so handsome? Why, I
expect it will be a case of
mutual affinity, you and he, unless he
las lost his heart abroad; this year he
las been to GermanyW
A case of affinity for her! Blanche
elt a thrill of sick pain Mrs. Pemberton
lever imagined her words had caused,
or, although she knew there was
ove-story entangled somehow with
3lanche's old life, the girl had been
proudly reticent of particulars, or
elmer Westcourt's name.
Mrs. Pemberton talked so much, so
'ften, of her darling, ''her blessed boy,'
Ter only son, John, who, to her, fulfill
ID every dream of manly excellence
md perfection.
And Blanche used to wonder often