Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1889-06-13
LINK BY LINK.
A THRILLING STORY OF TIKI
FRANOO-PRUssIAN WAR.
by MAURICE LEGRAND.
CHAPTER III.
A WEDDING GIFT.
oBE mill was very old.

al -
~ The family of Leroux had oct :,
pied it for generations past. Ii
had come down from father to son sue.
cessively, each new owner accepting it
as his birth-right, and bringing to it
the toll and care, and thrift which
slowly and surely brought riches and
comforts in their train.
Pierre LerouX, the present possessor,
had succeeded TO its ownership while
still young. Unlike most of his race
who had been keen, sharp-witted. up-
learned. Woodworking men, he was
fonder Of bool1-lore than of the market
place and the corn-fields, less sharp in
bargaining than generous in giving.
shy and reserved, but of strictest virtue
and truest charity, man whom many
misiudged and bu. few loved.
"a good son and kind MASTER" so
the people said, "but too much of a
dreamer, and easily outwitted; with no
eye for girls merry smile, and no
the village tavern" Up to 80 years
of age he had never seemed to give
thought or glances TO woman, but then
suddenly and unexpectedly he had
taken the fever OF love in its worst and
most dangerous form. Ninetta OAK
was tho loveliest girl, the archest CO.
quette and the worst match in the viii
lage. She certainly was also the very
last woman in the world any one could
expect TO subjugate the quiet reserved
Pierre Leroux. Nevertheless she had
done so with scarce an effort. He
loved her at first sight, and with no
thought OF question as TO who she
might be.
The glory of her beauty dazzed and
intoxicated him, till his sight grew
blind and his brain reeled, and from
that hour he had but one thought, one
resolve left-to win her.
A life once launched on the temptu-
Gus sea of passion, is not one to be en-
We'd. No moro was Pierre LerouX's.
He passed through fevers of jealousy,
through fires of intOXication, through
thorns of delirious Joy, and restless
pain and sweet idolatry. His very
GOODNESS and Indifference hitherto only
made him an easier and surer captive
his whole life was filled with but
one. memory-and dead to all else.
Ninette at first coquetted with-theo
feared-then loved this devoted and
yet timid wooer. His eyes spoke,
even though his lips were dumb-he
scarcely knew himself how much they
betrayed, how plainly their pathetic
entreaties told of the love consuming
him of the madness and tumlht that
were ut once SO mingled and so name
less to his,Own bewildered brain. In
his strong young manhood, with the
loyal faith, the dauntless courage, the
honesty and truth that made his ma
ture at once so noble and so great, he
lay at this girls mercy as utterly as if
he were a reed to be broken-a straw
on a rivers current. She first gloried
in her power, then grew afraid of it
afraid. because the game begun in
carelessnees had turned TO such terrible
earnestness-afraid, because she had
hitherto won love without scruple,
and played with it as heedlessly as a
child, yet now something of its pain
and JOY and wonder had touched her
too; all THAI was purest, tendere.t most
generous in her untu .ored nature had
been called forth, and for the first
time the worth OF great
passion shamed her own un-
worthiness. Had she but known it
this very feeling proved her love TO be
at last true-at Last womanly-for it is
the greatest and most exalted type of
a woman's passion when she feels its
very depth and devotion are yet far
short of what she would have them,
when she lays them at the feet OF the
man who has won her heart, and
deems the gift-nothing.
In every grade of life--in every
type and phase of character-how the
old story repeats itself!
The love of these two--a village girl
and Norman nIilier--might not seem
20 possess any striking characteristics,
and yet the elements of tragedy lay
beneath 1.-THE materials of a romance
terrible in its pathos, grand in its
truth.