The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1891-04-25


"Philip, there is a letter Oh, tell me!
l may 90 home, Philip ?"
"My darling, try to be quiet-try to be
brave. There is letter, but
ale says-no?''
"He says-no.
He was gazing into her eyes as he spoke
with heart-sick anxiety as to the effect OF
his words. A little shock seemed to pass
across her face leaving it gray and drawn
and she fell back painting little, her eyes
still fixed on him, but with their light
gone.
dorothy Oh, my poor loveF'
''Read me the letter
"No, no. Dorothy"
"Read me the letter"
He obeyel, and by the uncertain light
of the fire read:
"Sir You ask my permission to bring
your wife to my house on the plea that she
has suffered severely from homesickness,
and that in her present state of health her
life is endangered thereby. Failing my
consent to this you ask me to satisfy herI
sick fancy by promise that her child
should it survive-shall be allowed 'to
learn to know and love its mothers home.
In acceding to either of these requests
should break the word which passed to
my stepdaughter when she became your
wife-that neither she nor hers should ever
cross my threshold again. | am, &c.,
JAMES FARMER"
As he finished reading the man crushed
the letter in his hand with a gesture OF
utter loathing and contempt, and, turning
again TO the woman beside him, he took
her into his arms.
dorothy, my love, be brave. Don't
look like that Why did | ever come into
your life? What can l do for you? Doro-
thy, Dorothy! Is my love nothing to
you?"
She looked up at him with strange,
yearning expression in her blue eyes-the
| look of an animal that cannot understand
or explain its feelings, and only knows that
il Suffers
aOh, Philip, yesr' she said. "You
know, you know Only my home oh,
if were strong it would be different; but
lying here thinking, thinking all day long,
cannot keep my mind from my past life
nv childhood, my mother, and my home.
When | sleep l 90 back there always in my
dreams; and when | wake--Oh, Philip, |
cannot understand myself. cannot put
it into words. l love you, dear, indeed,
indeed do; but / long, long-l am dy-
ing for my old home"
Her weak voice rang with a despalring,
yearning cry; and the man who loved her
and who was impotent to satisfy the sick
craving which he had seen for months eat
ing away her life knelt by her side in the
now dying freight, and with his lips
pressed to her thin, white hands while she
went on
"And then | thought that if | could
know that my child would know the place
loved so much, that could leave my love
of it to my child l could bear it. [ could
bear to die here-away from it. But now
oh, Philip, Philip, Philip"
1t was her last appeal. A few hours
later, as her baby opened its eyes on the
world, Dorothys short life, her joys and
her troubles, came to an end Her aching,
longing pain was soothed by the kindly
hand of death; and her husband and her
little daughter were alone together.
CHAPTER II.
''IIubert, are you coming? Hubert, it
is really getting late Hubert" !"
The speaker was standing with her back
against a fve-barred gate in an attitude
half resigned, half impatient.
"What a pretty little woman y was what
people said at first sight of Mrs. Hubert
Ferrars, though she was only three-and-
twenty. A certain atmosphere of COM
pleteness pervaded her, mentally and ply
sically, which it was impossible to associate
with girlishness. Whether it lay in her
selfpossessed manner, in the self-reliant
glance of the quick, observant blue eyes,
or whether, as some people asserted, she
owed it to the beautiful way in which her
fair hair was dressed-always in the very
latest fashion-on the top of her little
head, or to the perfect, fashionable sim
plicity of her always appropriate dress, no
one could decide; but the fact remained
that she had been 'pretty little woman
almost as soon rs she ceased to be "pretty
little child"
Receiving no answer to her call, she
tnrned and looked over the field, across
which she had sauntered ten minutes be-
fore, at man who was sitting before an
EASEL at the top of the green slope, which
swept up from where she STOOD evidently
too deeply absorbed in his work to be
reached by voice from which he was
separate1-even in a material sense-by
the width OF 3 whole field.
Mrs. Ferars and her husband had come
to the neighboriug village on the previous
evening, that the latter might make studies
for picture, and it was her first experience
of English country. Though her parents
had been English, she had lived all her
life in st. Petersburg, and there Hubert
Ferrars, on holiday journey, had met her,
loved her-their friends said from force
| of contrast and married her But they
had been sitting out of doors all day long,
and though she had been impressed by the
scenery at first-strangely impressed her
husband had thought-Mrs Ferrars felt
that ten hours Of it was almost enough.
i'0h, dear old goose she murmured to
herself; ahe is buried again, and | really
thought he meant to come this time.
Must so back I'll try another call
first"
She made a speaking-trumpet of both
hands this time, and, with little laugh in
her voice, called, "Coo-ee co-ee!'
This time her voice reached him, and
he looked up with a start.
GLOW -much-longer?" the laughing
voice demanded.
She kept her eyes fixed on him as he
put his things together, lest he should
relapse again, and then, as he joined her,
she said:
"Well, thank goodness! Do you know
how often you have said IN come and
have not come in the course of the last
hour? No, don't apologize, sir Be thank
fnl thnt INN hnrn n ricn uhn Innmo the