Waterbury evening Democrat., 1891-01-13

a hollow look and his coats began to flap around his whitening form. He would lock his love up in the dungeon of his soul and have fun with the misery of it. Then when Brown came back, full of misgivings no doubt, he would take the wanderer by the hand, and say, with hollow cough: "I have been faithful to you, old man, but I am Q martyr to my 1 love-"
 'I say, young fellow," cried Ray, in- | terrupting RusSe1PS meditations at this point, ''if you stare at me any longer in that soulless fashion, without saying any thing or listening to what Pm talk l ing about, I shall think you've gone crazy"
 They had been sitting on the deck of the yacht, face to face, and Ray had l been talking in lively and as he SUD- posed entertaining fashion, for about half an hour, when it had suddenly dawned upon him that Russell's face had taken on an expression of deep misery wholly uncalled for by any thing that had been said. His question brought Russell back to a rational frame of mind, and he was able to conduct himself at the villa as if nothing unusual had happened. It was his last visit there during the season. The Rays came back to their town house in the following week. Rus sell called within a few days after their return, and his welcome was the same as ever. There had been no change in the household. But not many days after that he fancied that he noticed difference. There was an indefinable something in the bearing of Mrs. Ray and Alice which puzzled him at first, hut T., ial, hn 1oS1 sYn ner fitting closely to the observed facts. It seemed evident that the secret of his talk with Gilbert Ray had leaked out; that it had at last become the general property of the family. He could not believe that Ray had told Alice; she must have overheard something which betrayed the truth. At any rate Rus sell was quite certain that she knew how matters stood, but that was as far as his perception could get in her direc- tion. Mrs. Ray, he felt sure, approved. 1 With all possible respect to her, said he in his heart, she doesn't know any bet 1 ter, and couldn't be expected to, by any body acquainted with her plastic mind. Her husbands approval was quite enough.
 ! Alice, however, was a riddle much 1 that she was disappointed at his delay; and again he imagined that she was ly- 1 ing in ambush, waiting for chance to tell him what traitor he was. He thought of all the cruel things she might say; how she might show him the difference between himself and Brown, with a balance heavily in favor of the absent; and she might say that she would prefer Brown even if he re- ! turned from Central Africa with ring in his nose and confirmed habit of cannibalism. Russell fancied her re- fusing him in so many different ways that he began to be afraid some slip of the tongue would launch one of them upon him, even as his acceptance by her father had come by accident He began to resent this refusal which was only i figment of his imagination, and his res olution to seek her society no more melted in the heat of his i'll temper. 1 He determined to show her that her charms had no power to tempt him, and to make her understand in some way that her father had committed a piece of stupidity. Meanwhile, despite all this raging in his soul, his bearing to- ward her was frank, courteous and friendly, as it had always been.
 The Society for General Culture had survived the summer, and it's members had come back from the shores of the salt sea with an added thirst for knowl- edge. One of the girls had also great idea to propose at the society's first meeting. It was not original, but it was the latest fad Tn societies of that kinda revival of an ancient custom. She suggested that they find some struggling poet and help to win recog- milton for him. Russell must know one, and it would be such fun to encourage the poor fellow and help him by judi cious criticism and little money, till at last he could get his poems into the magazines.
 Russell reflected moment, while a great and amusing scheme filtered through his brain.
 ''I know the man, said he, at last; ''he is deserving fellow, but without some help his genius will never be known"
 The man whom Russell had in mind
 vas the janitor of downtown building, young fellow with about as much idea of poetry as wooden Indian. But na- ture had given him an ideal exterior the long hair, She thin, hungry-looking visage, and the eyes which forever fixed themselves on vacancy. Russell had often remarked what perfect picture of the traditional poet this man was. The yearning look in his eyes might have expressed the craving of genius for the ideal, but in reality it was the hardened expression of covetousness. A more matter-of-fact, hard-isted, un- romantic pursuer of the glittering dol lar it would have been impossible to im- agine. In the building where he worked he was known as Cupid, on account of his cupidity.
 Russelrs plan was to hire this man to personate poet, and to write preposter- ous nonsense for him to read at the so- ciety's meetings. After mature deliber-