Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-11-04

little and then fell down, d5Wn-his heart
beat hundred times before it smote the
ground far below with thud that sent a
shudder through him.
Then demon inspired him. The world
| that had swept around in giddy circles stood
immovable. In an instant he was cool and
collected. He felt for the railing of the
quarry, for such it was; broke the rotten
timbers at a stroke, and picking up the girl,
| carried her to the edge, held her there for
an instant-one mad instant in which everv-
thing looked into his face-then let 90 and
listened; made eyes of his ears and peered
down after her, saw her clothes tear, saw
her face strike the sharp rocks, saw some
! thing shoot out clear and fall, fall with
dizzy swiftness. saw something still and
shapeless and small on the far-away bottom,
and crept away, crept into the wagon, drove
softly home, crept to his rooms, packed his
things hurriedly and took the first train for
New York, and the first boat for Europe.
And no man ever knew what he had done.
The lime burners daughter did not fall
into the quarry, however. A log that
stretches from bank to bank of the chasm.
alongside the roadway, and only a few
inches below it, and few inches from the
stonework, caught her when she dropped
from the mans grasp, and held her there
until morning. What he heard was what
he expected to hear, which sometimes be-
comes real as actual noise; or a stone that
had hung pivoted, which a touch of her
dress or body disturbed and sent spinning
in her place down and down into the
quarry's vast emptiness to break on its
rocky floor. The quarrymen found her
there when they went to their work the next
day, knew who she was, and carried her
home to the house that is nearest the lime
kilns.
She was sick many DAYS, sick in the room
where all ate and slept, sick among flies and
noises, in summer and stove heat. But she
was delirious.most of the time, and only a
lime burners daughter, anyway. Many
things happen in many days. MANY days
will take a man to Europe, or entirely out
of lime burners world; and many days
make changes in such girls. They weep
much at first; when that fountain dries, de-
spair parches them. Even ground, if treated
so, will become hard; why not a woman?
The hardened daughters of the rich can be
good; a lime burners hardened daughter
has but one OPT or unity, but one door open
to her-the door b hind which women who
jeer at passers by day, and at night hiss
things women ought never say, and shelter
themselves where husbandless women, child
less women live on the passion that makes
wives and mothers of others.
Everybody was talking in the limekiIu
city; at least they were who lived on the
best streets of the town. Allan Hall, who
left so suddenly many years before, had re-
turned to his native place, wealthier than
his father, successful man with handsome
wife and boy just entering his nineteenth
year. There were unpleasant rumors when
he went,away; but they were long forgotten,
and, had they not been, would be forgotten
now. He was dined and feted, driven about
the city, invited to inspect the new-fashioned
kilns, taken everywhere, in fact, except into
the lime burners district or homes. 1t was
left for his son to go there. Not that he
sent him, or a committee took him; that
higher One some call Providence and some
call fate let it for HIM to go there.
There were two, Allan Halls son and a
fellow, and they went with gay brayado
down Sea street, past pawnshop and rum
hole, past dens and novels, into the house
nearest the lime kilns, no longer the house
of lime burner, but house full of laugh
ter, where men shout wild iests and women
still wilder, where fun becomes furious
where-where a girl lets you in and hag
lets you out
The bag was half asleep in chair by the
door when the two were ready to 60 and
hardly noticed them as she grumblinrly
unfastened the door-would not have no.
ticed at all if Hall had not cfered to help
her.