Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-02-19

lines peculiar to 1t: her face was slightly flushed. and the hrilliancy of her color, of her hair, of her white, outstretched hand, seemed to Kendall to take all the chill and gloom out of the winter air. She held some proof sheets of a new play in her hand, and the rest lay piled beside her on little table. sHow kind of you, Mir. Kendall she said, advancing with her quick. impulsive step towards him. II thought you had forgotten us, and 1 have been wanting your advice so badlyl I have just been complaining of you a little in letter to Mmo. de Chateauvieuxl She"-
 Then she suddenly stopped, checked and startled by his face. He was always color less and thin, but the two nights he had just passed through had given him an expression of haggard exhaustion. His black eyes seemed to have lost the keenness which was so remarkable in them, and his prematurely gray hair gave him almost look of age in spite of the lightness and pliancy of the fig ure
 He came forward and took her hand nerv- ously and closely in his own.
 Fl have come to bring you sad news" he said, gently, and seeking anxiously word by word how he might soften what, after all, could not be softened. "M de Chateauvieux sent me to you at once, that you should not hear in any other way. But it must be
 
 "Ohp she cried, interrupting him, speak ing in short, gasping words, and answering not so much his words as his look. "She is ill-she is in danger-somethlng has hap pened"
 ''I was summoned on Wednesday," said Kendall, helpless, after all, in the gripof the truth, which would not be managed or con- trolled
 "When got there she had been two days ill, and there was no hope"
 He paused; her eyes of agonized question ing implored him to go on II was with her six hours-after 1 came she had no pain-it was quite peaceful, and-she died in the even ing"
 She had been watching him open eyed, every vestige of color fading from cheek and lip; when he stopped, she gave a little cry. He let go her hand, and she sunk into a chair near, so white and breathless that he was alarmed.
 ''Shall get you waterf' he asked after q moment or two, bending over her.
 "No," she whispered with difficulty; "let me alone-just for minute"
 He left her side and stood leaning against the mantelpiece, waiting anxiously She struggled against the physical oppression which had seized upon her, and fought it down bravely. But he noticed with a pang, now that the flush was gone, that she looked fragile and worn, and, as his thought went back for a moment to the Surrey Sunday and her young rounded beauty among the spring green, he could have cried out in use less rebellion against the unyielding physical conditions which press upon and imprison the flame of life
 At last the faintneSs passed off, and she sat up, her hands clasped round her knees, and the tears running fast over her cheeks. Her grief was like herself-frank, simple, ex- pressive
 "Win you tell me moro about it? Oh, cannot believe itl Why, only last week, when I was ill, she talked of coming to me have just been writing to her-there is my l letter. l feel as if could not bear it; she was like mother to mo in Paris. Oh, if could have seen her!''
 "You were one of her chief thoughts al the last," said Kendall, much moved And he went on to tell her the story of Maries dying hours, describing that gentle with drawal from life with manly tenderness oi feeling and a quick memory for all tha, could soften the impression of it to the lis tener. And then he brought out the 1ninia ture and gave it to her, and she accepted il with fresh burst of sorrow, putting it tt her lips, studying it, and weeping over Ii with an absolute spontaneity and self aban
 
 | true.
 "Oh, poor M. de Chateauvieuxr' she cried after a long pause, looking up to him. "Hov will he live without hera He will feel himsel so forsaken!'
 "Yes," said Kendall huskily, "he will b, | very lonely, but-one must learn to bear it.
 She gazed at him with quick, startled sym pathy, and all her womanly nature seemed to rise into her upturned face and yearninl eyes. It was as though her attention ha, been specially recalled to him; as though hi particular loss and sorrow were brusquel, brought home to her. And then she wa struck by the strangeness and unexpected ness of such q meeting between them. H had been to her a judge, an authority, a embodied standard. His high mindednes had won her confidence; his affection for hi sister had touched and charmed her. Blu she had never been conscious of any intimac with him. Still less had she ever dreamed o sharing a common grief with him, of weer ing at his side. And the contrast betwee her old relation with him and this new SO emn experience rushing In upon her filled he with emotion. The memory of the Nuneha: day woke again in her-of the shock betwee her nature and his, of her overwhelmin sense of the intellectual difference betwee them, and then of the thrill which his vel | relation which she had regarded as s mer intellectual and friendly one, but which ha been far more real and important to her tha even she herself had ever guessed, seemed t have transformed itself since he had entere the room into something close and persona His last words had called up in her a shar impression of the mans inmost nature as was, beneath the polished scholarly surfac They had appealed to her on the simples commonest human ground; she felt them in pulsively as a call from him to her, and he own heart overfowed.
 She rose, and went near to him, bendin towards him like spirit of healing, hs whole soul in her eyes. "Oh, am so SOFT for you" she exclaimed, and again the quie , tears dropped. "I know it is no commc loss to you. You were so n:,lch more to eae other than brother and sister often are. It terrible for you"
 . His whole man was stirred by her pity, ? the eager responsiveness of her sympathy. "Say it againl" he murmured, as their ey 1 mat. acaint It {s ao swoet-fro