Waterbury evening Democrat., 1891-04-10

neither hoped nor feared any thing. She ate and drank and slept, the mechanical routine of the days repeated itself, but she had come to a dead stop. She had lost all courage, all faith; bare, blank wall faced her. There was nothing more to be enjoyed nor suffered. She had had every thing and lost every thing.
 If she had consciously recognized all this there might have been some hope of reaction. When one appreciates the dramatic effect of circumstances, new interest in new circumstances Is apt to be not far off. But Helen was capable of no such attitude toward herself. One saw 1t in her face-darlx and thin and changeless as a statue's. She had great dark eyes, but they never varied their dreamy, unheeding look. Her voice was low, soft and monotonous. And yet she was not at all a dreadful person to live with. It was impossible that her story should not cast its shadow over the household, but when it was once settled that Helen's experience had exempted her from all the ordinary rules that bound the others, matters adjusted themselves, as they always do, and the happy current of commonplace
 
 She was slender and graceful, strong, too, as these slight-built New England women are often enough. At seven teen she had not been handsome, but she had had that air of any possibility of beauty that Is better than defined prettiness. She was shy, reserved and cold, with the positive, repelling power of strong natures, with the Puritan tra- ditions of training superadded. Under it she was willful, headstrong and pas sionate, never capable of seeing more than one side of q subject, and always 1 glorifying that side with the whole l force of a tropical imagination rigidly repressed and totally ungoverned.
 It was just then that in a school va cation she visited friend in one of the shadiest and oldest and steadiest of Connecticut villages. While she was in the house there came out of the vague Southwest a young man that claimed blood relationship with the family. It was just in the days when Bret Hartes heroes stood foremost in the ranks of popularity. The inborn rebel lion against conventionalities in Hell ems blood caught eagerly at the pie turesuue freedom and wildness of these characterizations. She could not real ize that one redeeming trait may not suffice to make a whole life tolerable. Payne Morse was as handsome in his blonde way as young demigod. He had the slow, soft speech of the plains man; he swore no oaths, in her presence, at least; he conformed to the require ments of a community to which re- volver and a lariat-rope were alike un- called-for and outlandish, with good natured toleration that had in Helen's eyes immense piquanoy and magnanim- ity. Then he rode like a centaur, and the accomplishment was so novel in that corner of the hills that 1t seemed almost like something unlawful and ungodly. Somebody in wild fit of speculation had shipped East a train load of mustangs, with the nlusive hope that they might be broken for use among the quartz lodges. They kicked, they bucked, they sat on their haunches and squealed their wrongs aloud in every variation of the equine tongue, and at last Payne Morse was appealed to as being only a little less savage than the mustangs, to see If he could do any thing with them.
 He found himself able, and apparent ly enjoyed the work. His fearless rid ing, his quiet, merciless mastership ot the untamed brutes, completed the con- quest of Hclen's fancy.
 That was in leafy June; in September she went back to school. A month later she left the recitation-room one day, put on her hat. walked out of the house and to the railroad station In th' next city Payne Morse awaited her They were married within the hour, ant before sunset they told the story in the Tryon sitting~room.
 Helen was not defiant She was quiet rather sad, but no more repentant oI regretful than block of marble. Mir Tryon recognized the trait by sympathy perhaps. He looked at the two as they stood in the middle of the room. Mother C and sister had withdrawn a little