The Press., 1894-12-20

tuition and instinct with strong hand, magnified the superficial charms of the man and was able at last to say, 'It was irregular, improper, wrong, but we can't help liking him. ;
 Helen's sisters, two of them, really did like him. The careless, easy, uncon- scious dash of his manner, his unfailing, elaborate if somewhat florid courtesy, the air of vague romance that seemed to make the atmosphere ill which he breathed-all appealed to their ideal of the chivalric and poetic He did not talk much of himself, but his half i'm personal stories of wild adventures and reckless daring opened vistas into linn itless wonderland. MT. Tryon treated him politely always and never said a word for or against him.
 Then Helen took the few thousand dollars for which by right she would have waited till she had reached her majority and went with her husband into the then half savage depths of the | Colorado cattle ranges.
 For four years her letters came regu- larly. From the very first there had been little of personal record in them. What she hoped or feared, enjoyed or suffered, no one had any way of guessing. It was the kindest thing to read nothing more than appeared on the surface But at the end of that time Payne Morse was tried and sentenced to confinement fo1 1 life for participation ill daring train robbery. She simply sent the papers in which the matter was recorded.
 MT. Tryon followed his telegram with all the speed possible. And so Helen Morse came home again, a statuesque shadow of herself-she and her baby, ject of worship.
 One more blow remained to fall. A year later the baby died. The newspa- l per that told its death told, too, the 1 death of it's father, shot while trying tC escape from the prison ill which he was confined.
 Helen wore black after that-perhaps for her baby's death, perhaps for the memory of the man who had treated he1 with a cruelty she never told nor hinted at, perhaps for herself, because she had outlived everything. At any rate, she went in somber garments, and no one questioned or remarked.
 And so up to this night, the night ot her twenty fifth birthday, when they were all sitting about the tea table and talking of Harry prospects, Harry had l bought share in a Texas ranch, and he l and his partner were going to rough it alone ill their cabin among the grass | and sheep. Harry was enthusiastic, fore | r,+o l. character he was to assume by and by.
 "Now, Mir. Micawber!" Grace said mockingly. Mother, you ought to give him tin plate and cup and keep silver forks out of his sight. And, Harry, you'll have to cut the acquaintance of boiled shirts unless you boil them yourself, and then you'll have spasms over the l starch. ''
 Helen looked up and said in her slow, impressive way, "Why couldn't go and keep house for you, Harry"
 Silence fell about the table. The idea had never presented itself to one of | them, but now all at once it did not seem so impracticable. No fancy of Helen's ever did for Helen
 1 ''I have seen something of the life, '' she said. "There is nothing in it that l cannot face. 1 do not mind the solitude, and house is more comfortable with a woman ill it. ''
 And so it was settled. She went about her preparations with aightforward, unhurrying readiness that admitted o1 1 little assistance In 10 days the brother and sister started, and the family felt somehow as if there had been death as we'll as a departure.
 In those days the railroad lines were everywhere incomplete. Helen, alight ing from the train at it's farthermost point of advance, found herself with | 500 miles of stage riding before her. With her usual silence, she did not ever comment on the discomforts of the jour. ney. She was the only woman ill the great swinging coach. The other pas sengers were men, bronzed and bearded, | in fiannels and sombreros, and with more l or less of the furniture of an armory about them. They paid her great deal 1 of deferential attention and were assidu. ous in supplying every want, real ol I imagined And Helen took it all, as she did everything else, with gentle kind of half unobservant gravity that seemed to be very puzzling to theil 1 minds.
 On the second day, well among the mountains, swinging down long in, cline among the dark shadows of the pines, there was a sudden, abrupt report of firearms, @ plunging, lurching mo- tion of the coach, sudden uproar o1 voices without, and Helen, crushed down into the lower corner of the vehicle, with smothered impression of several tons of kicking humanity over and above her, heard "road agents" uttered somewhere in the mass and knew what had befallen them.
 One by one the passengers were ex. tracted.
 ''There'a lady ill there, " a voice said.
 ''We'n come to her presently. Seat yourselves on that log, gentlemen. Here she is. Now, madam, " offering a diamond ringed white hand. Up rose Helen, as little disheveled as it was possible for woman to be un, der the circumstances, and was assisted up and out by a masked man with the 1 easiest elegance of demeanor. I've are sorry to inconvenience a 1 lady," quiet voice said, ''but it is one
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