Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1891-10-11

I
lurked in her heart tended to nd kehis
presence irksome there was alVfyshis
weakness to plead for him. Cry was
undeniably seriously i'll. Everybody
observed it. Plying glances were
continually reading the stqy OF
the fever flushed cheeks and
the too brilliant eyes; and
strangers, with blurdering kind
ness. went out OF their way toscrape
acquaintance and suggest thelf RENE
dies for his cough. But it was gowing
better, Gray each day brightly declared,
with that strange self deception that
seems part Of pulmonary diseas, each
day seeming little thinner, little
weaker; while Apita's heart, as grew
heavier for him, yet turned TO PIN the
more In plying tenderness.
We are never so oppressed wth the
cruel inexorability of natures hws as
when we see our friend, glowing with
| the full Joy of life, blildly hurting on
TO the vast unknown whence no oae 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
moment against that invisible grasp that
is drawing him down a; in a qubksand
before our eyes.
And this was Gray-dear old Joyous
hearted Gray, who had played with her,
and loved her, and shouldered thu blame
of many Of her small sins when they
had been children together; whei death
had seemed an intangible something
that belonged to age, that never by any
chance would touch thair happyyouth.
And now presently tie air would be
meeting together in she little space
filed 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, or of any one of IS. She did not
need to love to feel the pitfulness Of it.
For two days it had rained, merci-
less, steady down pouring that Knocked
at every tradition OF Colorados falr
climate; two days OF confinement In tho
bare ranch parlor, where, among all the
cane seated abominatiols, were but two
chairs really comfortable to tempt the
selfshness of a dozen unhappy people
where every game Invented by man
failed to offset the torture dlabolic i'm
pulses were continually evoking from
the decrepit piano. For Anita there
was q bit of silver lining showing
through the clouds, in hat Mrs. Rogers
was kept shut up within her cabin
Quarter Of a mile away That vivaclous
little person rather haunted the ranch
hostelry, where she cane for her mail,
for milk, butter and other necessaries-
most of all, it was Whispered by the OBJ
servers, to carry on sort of aesthetic
Irritation with coIsumptive young
clergyman, with side glance TO spare
for Gray Van Zandt's blase beauty. Had
there been hundred men in Eden,
would Eve ever have rested until she
had beguiled every las. one Of them in
to a bite of her fatal apple?
IN Gray, however, the little coquette
had found one Who was fully alive TO
the flavor of the fruit she had to offer.
Nothing he could have done would
have won him more favor in Anita'S
Jealous heart than the cold shoulder he
turned upon this woman whom she
counted her rival. BY no means as
guileless as the dove was this young
man; but in the ways Of women he was
as wise as the serpent that won the
first weak one TO evil.
He had come with no thought Of
bringing about the fall of another mans
paradise. He had thought the old love
for his cousin well nigh forgotten. For
a year, in his busy pleasure-seeking life,
ne had scarce given her thought. But
the heart is as a palimpsest, on which
an impression once made can never be
wholly erased. However, the old lines
may be lost with time, or replaced by
others, when once the proper influences
are brought to bear what came first is
restored in all it's pristine freshness.
Finding his cousin, as it seemed, I'M
happy, the lost love was revived in his
pity, passiOnately insistent. 1t seemed
TO Gray his right. as her kinsman, to
shield her from trouble, to do all that
he might for her happiness. And when
ne was persuaded that she might have
been his but for conditions outside her
own impulses, it was but q step for his
lawless fancy to dream that all obstacles
might yet be oyercOme-that it was for
him to chase the sadness from her eyes
and bring back the bright glow Of hap
piness.
Another Saturday had come, in smiles
and tears, like mockery OF April
weather. All the morning the sun had
been coquetting through the meShes OF
l.. In, = hn 10 n
noon the sky had cleared and the world
seemed steaming itself dry in the food
of mellow sunshine. The common lux
ury Of fair weather was for thu time
valued at its worth, and everybody had
come out of doors to enjoy it to The ut
most.
Anita, with a small party, wal climb
ing a trail smooth and clean from the
beating Of the rain as II it had just been
swept, winding up a brook trtversed
gulch. a warm, brooding silenCe held
the place; not whisper among the pine
tops nor among the gray enfringes
of the spruces bending heavily down
from their precarious footing; no faint
est rustling among the seed pltmes Of
the grasses, all with their heads bowed
down together overweighted with jew
eled drops; no chirp Of gossipin6 grass
hopper, nor dronipg chant of the bee.
Delicious it was, after two days OF con-
finement in that stufly ranch house, to
drink in that pure air that Wen to the
lungs like tonic.
Her cheeks softly flushed, her eyes
sparkling, her lips parted in a hat smile
as she painted in the exercise in the rare
air, Anita led the wy, stopping some
times TO caress the pI lals OF late flow
err, sometimes to looA back at tn valley
below to estimate thdl height they had
attained while she recovered her
spent breath. Turning at length, it
seemed as if the earth had Suddenly
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