Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1891-09-03

Dc NOuHu Up W MdlIldSc AulO a pei pCO-
ual regularity of action. even though for
his sake seeming angels may have fallen,
is yet, on his own account. rarely mind
ed to feel the poisoned barbs of jealousy.
A fiattering experience has contributed
to an armor of self confidence too nearly
invulnerable. And thus Anita's venge-
full plans fell fat at the outset. That
her cousin had once loved her Donald
knew well, but she had not loved her
cousin-poor DEVIL and that settled the
matter SO far as Donald Bartels was con-
cerned.
1t was disappointing to come into the
oppressive loneliness of the silent house,
but the explanation of the servant
seemed perfectly simple and satisfactory.
1t was quite to be expected that Anita
should have gone ON to the park to meet
him according to his plan. and he was
amiably pleased that the %opportune visit
of her cousin had arranged the trip so
agreeably for her.
Not to miss a mail he reused himself
at daybreak the next morning to scratch
a hasty letter, bidding her stay at the
park, and-this was Saturday-the next
week he would ride up to spend Sunday
with her, and if she liked bring her
home. He was afraid that. finding him
gone, she might be disposed TO return;
and he wanted her to enjoy an I'M
troubled holiday.
Anita's first impulse had been, indeed,
TO return at once. but Gray said decided
~ that the horses must rest for a day,
and when Donald's letter came she in
differently acquiesced in his plan. 1t
was but a choice of evils at best, she
told herself. She dreaded to meet her
husband, anger still burning at her
heart, as much as she feared Gray's re-
awakened passion. And Gray did his
utmost to keep her fear of him in abey-
ance His attitude was simply that of a
kindly kinship. his attentions only such
as common courtesy demanded. As if
unconsciously he seconded all her efforts
that they should not be left alone to-
gether. devoting himself, with his fine
talent Of Irritation, to every woman who
smiled him a welcome.
And Anita, indignant at first for the
indiscreet admission into which he had
led her. treasured by his indifferent atti-
tude. grew to regard him more kindly
rs the days wore on. If the fear that
lurked in her heart tended to make his
presence irksone, there was always his
weakness to plead for him. Gray was
~undeniably seriously i'll. Everybody OBJ
served it. Plying Chances We're con-
~tinually reading the story of the fever
flushed cheeks and the too brilliant eyes:
and strangers. with laundering kind
ness, went out of their way 10 scrape ac-
qu%aintance and suggest their remedies
for his cough. But it was growing bet
ter, Gray each day brightly declared,
with that strange self deception that
seems a part of pulmonary disease, each
day seeming a little thinner, a little
weaker; while Anita's heart, as it grew
heavier for him. yet turned to him the
more in plying tenderness.
We are never so oppressed with the
cruel inexorability of natures laws as
when we see our friend, glowing with
the full joy of life, blindly h%urrying on
to the vast unknown whence no one may
come back to tell us it is well with him;
when we know that the hand warm in
our clasp is already chilling with the
creeping clutch of death; when we must
see that, were our love as wide as the
world, it could not hold him back for a
moment against that invisible grasp that
is drawing him down as in a quicksand
before u eyes.
And this was Gray-dear old joyous
hearted Gray, who had played with her.
and loved her, and shouldered the blame
of many Of her small sins when they
had been children together; when death
had seemed an intangible something that
belonged to age, that never by any
chance would touch their happy youth.
And now presently the air would be
meeting together IN the little space filled
with his happy life, as if he had never
been, and she would be living on to see
how little the world had need of him, OF
of any one of us. She did not need to
love TO feel the pitifulness Of it.
For two days it had rained, a merci-
less, steady down pouring that Knocked
at every tradition of Colorado's fair
climate; two days of confinement in the
bare ranch parlor, where, among all the
zane seated denominations, were but two
chairs really comfortable to tempt the
of a dozen unhappy people
where every game invented by man
failed to offset the torture diabolic i'm
pulses were continually evoking from
the decrepit piano. For Anita there
was a bit of silver lining showing
through the clouds, in that Mrs. Rogers
was kept shut up within her cabin, a
quarter of a mile away. That vivacious
little person rather haunted the ranch
hosiery, where she came for her mail,
for milk, butter and other necessaries-
most of all, it was whispered by the OBJ
servers, to carry on a sort of aesthetic
Irritation with a c~onsumptive young
with a side glance to spare
for Gray Van Zandts blase beauty.
Had there been a hundred men in Eden.
would Eve ever have rested until she
had beguiled every last one of them into
a bife of her fatal auDleg