Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1890-12-03
A MODERN KNIGHT.
BY EVELYN THORP.

my dear boy, what will you? Cal
the TACT fantastic; call it absurd. But as
fact it remains. Useless to talk to
Mignon, useless to approach her. She
has her ideas, her very foolish ideas.
You say that you fell in love with her
before you knew who she was. That
your passion has waXed warm and true,
even while you have never spoken to
her. That such passion should be rO-
mantle enough to satisfy even her. |
tell you. no. Are you descended from
some Crusader? Do you date back to
the year 1000? No. You have no
glamor about you; you have no escutch-
con, to be gilded or otherwise. You are
plain Rob Beckwith, an unadorned
American. Love you for self? You
don't know this young ward of mine.
| ca1 give you no hope. Keep away.
That is my best advice"
This letter was directed, sealed, and
Mr.. Massey looked at it a moment be-
fore sending it.
Little fool Where would she find
such a husband as Rob? But / care for
the boy too we'll to allow him to entan
gle his affections for naught. She would
never have him. Better let him know
the truth from the first.
The band was playing, and the wind
stirred softly in the acacias. The peo-
pie who had just sauntered out from the
table d. hote of the Hotel du Nord wan
dered to and fro. Little Miss Fitzger-
aid watched the whole foreign scene
gloomily, the cankerworm of homesick-
ness eating out her heart as it had done
ever since the Umbria swung out of her
New York pier three months before.
She was sacrificing her own inclinations
in coming abroad to her niece, that adj
mirably pretty. girl, whose eyes now
rested on the human kaleidoscope be-
fore her with zest as keen as Miss
Fitzgerald's lack of interest was appar-
ent.
But now Miss Fitzgerald said tenta-
lively:
IF your guardian-if Mr.. Massey
comes abroad in fortnight, suppose,
Mignon, he will prefer to return again
before the autumn? Do you think you
would be willing to return with him, my
dear ?''
There was no reply, for flush that
WAS like the selection of some sunset
cloud had suddenly dyed the girls love-
ly cheek. A tall and dark-eyed young
man approached the chairs where the
two ladies sat-
''Do you know this young man ?"
queried Miss Fitzgerald, struck by
something insistent in the strangers
glance.
mo, aunt" said Mignon, averting
her face
But when the music was over and the
ladies arose, there f1oated toward them
q certain little cosmopolitan widow
whose acquaintance they had by chance
made in travelling.
"Dear Miss Fitzgerald, I want" cried
this lady, "to introduce most charm
ing fellow to you-Count Holm. He
speaks English as well as you or l. Do
let me make the introduction"
And before Miss Fitzgerald could find
ingly, and the tall and -dark-eyed young
man of half an hour before was bowling
to the ground before the little spinster
and her niece.
Count Holm proved worthy of the en-
dorsement given him. Even little Miss
Fitzgerald, whose dread of foreigners"
was ingrained and inveterate, was COM
PEELED to admit that she had never sup
posed a German count could be so nice.
''There are times when he seems to
me Just like one OF own young men at
home" observed the little lady in the
course of few days.
"He does not seem that to me at all, }"
asseverated Mignon with unusual quick
ness. Anything but that !"
Her aunt turned her eyes upon her
Mignon? Prone to dreams and sundry
exaltations such she had always been /!
But now there was something more.
About the lines of her mouth and eyes
there had come an intensity, wistful-
ness and far-awayness that had not
been there before. She started at I'M
expected footsteps. She flushed or
grew pale without visible reason. She
studied German by the hour. Count
Helm translated it's appealing senti-
ment for her in amazingly faultless En-
glish-faultless save for d very slight
accent-and she listened with lowered
eyelids and a futtering color in her
cheek.
Her little aunt's words required to
her a few days later as she found her.
through the sun-fecked woods, up to-
ward the old castle that dominated the
town from its shaded heights All
about them was a warm scent of pine,
and he was talking slowly, softly, bend
ing his graceful dark head.
''Long before / knew you / loved
YOU" he was saying, and though she
fried feebly to stem the current of this
precipitous declaration, he continued:
''You think these mad words? You
doubt my sincerity? / knew that the
American race is slower and calmer in
it's affections; that it repudiates our
warmer passions and give them no faith.
But, alb how wrong you are If you
knew
1--WE are not all Of that mind" threw
in the girl, beneath her breath.
"Ah if only you were not! If you
could believe that | loved you, even be-
fore I had SPOKEN word to you, with a
most true, most faithful, a most endur-
ing passion You resume the whole
world to me The light of sunrise and
of sunset fingers for me in your eyes
Yes, | love you! Will you turn me
away because, forsooth, as conventional
standards go. am still a stranger to you
.o-day?"
The words were eloquent, but the