The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1893-06-04

gone 10 his place, and there IS 20 apology
for those that would follow III the loot
steps of Lawrence Sterre.
In nameless city OF land that shall
be nameless, rich man lived alone. His
wealth had bought him luxurious fat
en- the fifth floor of a red brick mansion,
whose grilles were of hammered iron and
whose halls We're of inlaid marble. When
he needed attendance, Goals, his letters, a
meal, messenger or carriage, he
pressed an electric button and his wants
were satisfied almost as swiftly as even
petulant wealth could expect. An ex-
ccedingly swift lift bore him to and from
his rooms, and in his rooms he had gath
cred about him all that his eye de-
slred-books in rich cases with felted
hinges, ivories from all the world, rugs,
lamps, cushions, couches, engrayings
aud rings with engravings upon them,
miniatures OF pretty women, scientific
toys and china from Persia. lie had
friends and acquaintance as many as he
could befriend or know; and some said
that more than one woman had given
him her whole love. Therefore he could
have lacked nothing whatever.
One day hot sickness touched him
with its finger, and he became no more
sessions, the sport of dreams and devils
and shadows, sometimes a log and some
times lunatic crying in delerlum. Be
fore his friends iorsoOk him altogether,
as healthy brutes VIII foTsake the
wounded, they saw that he was efficiently
0oclored, and the expensive physician
who called upon him at first three times
day, and later only once, caused him to
be nursed by a hun. 1tScience is good, j"
said the physician, "but for steady, con-
1inuous nursing, with no science in it,
religion is better = and l know Sister
Ursnla.n
So this sick manwas nursed by nun,
young and fairly pretty, but above all,
skillinl. When he got better he would
give tie convent, and not Sister Ursula, a
thankoiering which would be spent
among the poor whom Sister Ursula
chiefly attended. At first the man knew
nothing of the nuns existence-he was in
the country beyond all creeds-but later
a white coifed face came and went across
his visions, and at last, spent and broken,
be woke to see very quiet young
woman IN black moving about his room.
BE was too weak to speak; too weak al
most to e. ng to life any more. In his
despair be thought that it was not worth
clinging to; but the woman was at least
4 woman and alive. The touch OF her
fingers in his as she gave him the medi-
cine was warm. She testified to the
existence OF world full OF women
also alive-the world he was Begin
ming to disbelieve in. He watched
her sitting in the sunshine by the Win
dow, and counted the light creeping down
from bead to bead OF the rosary at her
waist. They then moved his bed to the
window that he might look down upon
the stately avenue, that ran by the fat
house, and watch the people going to and
oh h,,c DIT al
instead OF cheering, cast him into deeper
melancholy. 1t was nearly 100 feet, sheer
drop, to those healthy people, walking SO
fast, and the mere distance depressed him
unutterably. He played with the scores
of visiting cards that his friends had left
for him, and he tried to play with the
knobs of the desk close to the head of his
bed, and he was very, very wretched.
One morning he turned his face away
from the sunlight and took no interest in
anything while the hand turned back up-
on the dial SO swiftly that it almost
alarmed the doctor. He said to himself:
tBored, Ell? Yes. You're gust the kind
of over educated, over-refined man that
would drop his hold on life through sheer
boredom. You've been most interest
ing case SO far, and l wont lose you. -
lie said to Sister Ursula that he would
send an entirely fresh prescription by his
boy, and that Sister Ursula must give it
10 the invalid every 20 minutes without
fail. Also, il the man responded, it
might be well to talk to him little. she
needs cheering up. There is nothing the
matter with him now; but he wont pick
mp.
There can be few points of sympathy
between a man born, bred, trained and
sold for and to the world and good nun
made for the service of other things.
Sister Ursula IS voice was very sweet, but
the matter of her speech did not interest.
The invalid lay still, looking out of the
window upon the street all dressed in its
Sunday afternoon emptiness. Then he
shut his eyes. The DOCTORS boy rang at
the door. Sister Ursula stepped out into
the hall, not to disturb the sleeper, and
took the medicine from the boys hand.
Then the lift shot down again, and even
as she turned, the wind of its descent
paffed up and blew shut the spring-lock
door OF the rooms with a click, only a
little more loud than the leap of her terri
fed heart.
Sister Ursula tried the door softly, but
rich men with many hundred pounds
worth of bric-a-brac buy themselves very
well made doors that fasten with singu-
larly cunning locks. Then the lift re-
turned with the boy in charge, and so
soon as his Sunday and rather distracted
attention was drawn to the state of affairs,
he suggested that Sister Ursula should go
down to the basement and speak to the
caretaker, who dou btless had g dupli-
cate key. To the basement, therefore,
Sister Ursula went with the medicine
bottle clasped to her breast, and there,
among mops and brooms and sinks and
heating pipes, and the termini of all the
electrical communications of that many
etoried warren, she found, not the care
taker, but his wife, reading paper. with
her feet on a box of soap. The caretaker' s
wife was Irish and Catholic, reverencing
the church in all its manifestations. She
was not only sympathetic but polite.
Her husband had gone out, and, being a
prudent guardian of the interests confided
TO him, had locked up all the duplicate
keys.
'sAn' the saints only know whin Mike'n
be back av a Sunday she concluded
cheerfully, after history of Mixes pecul-
iarities. He be afther havin' supper
wild friends.''
"Tne medicine!'' said Sister Ursula.
looking at the inscription on the bottle.
sit must begin at twenty minutes past
five. There are only ten minutes now.
There must-oh. there must be way.''
s'Give him a double dose next time.
The docthor won't know the differ.'' The
convent OF Sister Ursula is not modelled
after Irish ideals, and the present duty
before its nun was to return to the locked
room with the medicine. Meantime the
minutes flew bridleless, and Sister Ursu-
las eyes were full of tears.
81 must get to the room, ;" she insisted.
ssOh, surely, there is way, any wayi''
''There's wan way,' said the care
takers wife, stung to profitable thought
by the others distress. stAnd that's the
way the tenants would go in case av fire.
To be sure now l might send the lift
boy-'
1T would brighten him to death. He
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