Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1891-01-03

! Ting in MS crring soul all these two
years. He who had preached the Word
| and exhorled men and women and
| children to follow it, he had been the
greatest sinner of all. He had been
driven out into the mountains to
wrestle with himself in PRAYER night
after night. but the demon in him
would not be conquered; the timidity
of hypocrisy, the worldly fear of the
man wishing to STAND before the hand
full of rough honest creatures who
constituted society for him. uublem-
shed, with proudly lifted head, kept
him from the path of righteous retri-
button, of lowly, abased repentent
confession. He had sought to stihe
the glamor of the inner vices by going
hither and yon, by lingering at the
house of jimmy, by caressng the
thought that, had things been different,
here was a Young girl who might have
loved him honestly and with whom he
could have lived in peace and plenty
all his days, And, under such thoughts,
the moral fibre in him had been more
aud more relaxed and he had grown,
though outwardly unchanged, an ever
inferior man.
But the powers Of good had prevail
ed at last. He had come to Big Stag
Valley this year when the people from
all the country round, to whom he had
for six years now been unintermitent-
" preaching, would be assembled at
the house of the Widow Davis, the
richest woman in the settlement be-
cause they had so prevailed. And
when be had caught Jinny's Innocent
ly provocative chances just now and
read for the first time their full mean
ing, he bad realized how great in this
direction also had been his fault since
he had by an uuIoving and unlawful
dallance permitted false hopes to
arise in this young girls heart.
God be merciiul to me. sinner"
murmured the passions of the man at
length subdued, He raised his deep
eyes, around whose orbits were the
sigus of a moral struggle, such as few
issue yictors from, paused at the door
of the cabin from which jimmy had
turned away her eyes an hour before.
Within a few hickory sticks famed on
the brick hearth. There was but one
wooden chair in the cabin. and this
was drawn close to the hearth A
young woman. with eyes great agd
brown and soft as does. sat on the
chair, her long, slender hands clasped
about her knees. At one side Of the
cabin small square unglazed aperture
admitted such light TO the interior as
might struggle in when the door was
closed. Beyond this window the pre-
cipitious mountain side closed in the
horizon. The evergreen rhododen-
dron bushes chung to its flank. The
dark pine stood sharply in relief
against patches Of snow. AT the foot
of the mountain the creeks tOrtuous
course lay stagnant and silent. The pink
lights that come with the winter sun
sets of the mountains mingled with
the blue shadows cast By the holiows
whore the snow lay.
Every now aud then Cvrilly lifted
the brown eyes that were like those Of
a doe that dies OF some mortal hurt,
aud looked out al the still. cola ticL-
nre framed by The little square window
of the cabin.
Down by the fro4- d creek. where the
wild azaeas bIoomed 10 yellow and
white and purple glory with the days
OF June. Was liny grave.
At the door there was step, and
hand was on the latch.
Joel Cheyne came in, and covering
closed the door behind him For an
instant their arertcd eyes met, aad
Cyrilly's cIasped hands closed eoa-
vulsively.
"CyrilIy. l have come back-to
atone-a as much as possible.
The dancing was at its height. The