The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1894-05-26

of their family. Lord Ryde, whose hob
bies were his own health and the results
upon it of various patent medicines, thought
her kindly and sympathetic and Lady
Ryde, whose mind was almost entirely ab-
sorbed in details concerning High Church
ritual, found Kitty always ready to read
aloud articles from her favorite controver-
sial newspapers and to attend her to church
at all hours.
Kittys father, who had lived in London
for years and lost almost every characters
tic of the race from which he had sprung
excepting a rather provoking tendency to
the display of outward emotion, had always
considered his daughter faultless. But
even he was sensible of her increased gen
tleness of manner, her more fully devel-
oped powers of sympathy, her patient con-
sideration toward the shortcomings of 9TH
ers. She was very sad and silent some
expected during Vincent's absence. Mr..
Malone was sincerely glad to see how ro-
mantically in love she was with her future
husband.
Kitty and her father left London toward
the end of July, and Installed themselves
for few months in little riverside house
with rose garden and tumble-down
veranda. She never forgot the expression
of her fathers face one evening after the
late newspapers had arrived. She came
in and saw him standing by an open win
dow, his hand shaking so that the sheets
cracked, the tears running down his cheeks,
aud the strangest triumphant smile lighting
up his eyes at the same time,
He moved few steps toward her, tremb-
ling still.
"Well, you're to marry hero, Kitty,
my darling God bless him See here !"
aud he handed the crumpled newspaper to
his child.
Her face grew stiff and white as she
read an enthusiastic account of the heroic
condnct of staff officer, Captain the Hon
Vincent Pelham, who, although himself
wounded, had carried away in his arms a
sergeant who had been more severely hit.
In was under a heavy fire, the paragraph
went on to say, and there was but little
doubt that Captain Pelham would be re-
commended for the Victoria Cross, which
he had so thoroughly deserved.
The following morning the Times
brought more news to the riverside cot
tage-fuller details of the episode which
was of so great interests to its occupants
and this time the name of the sergeant who
had been so dangerously wounded and
only saved from death by the valor of her
lover met Miss Malones eyes. She had
known by some strange instinct what it
would be, and that evening, when she sat
by her open window inhaling the perfume
of a thousand roses and listening to the
gentle tapping of the water against the
banks, she wrung her hands tightly to-
gether, and said, half loud;
"Oh, why is one man to have all and
the other nothing nothing till he dies ?"
CHAPTER ".
In the early spring Captain and Mrs.
Vincent Pelham spent their honeymoon in
charming gabled house looking over wide
downs and noble white cliffs in the Isle of
Wight The property belonged to an un-
Gle of the bridegroom, and would in time,
with many another good thing, become
Vincent's own. The fresh breeze from the
chalk slopes brought new roses to Kitty's
cheeks, and they had been little pale for
some months past. People noted with
admiration how much affected she had ap-
peared at her husbands illness, how proud
she was of his success. And, without
doubt, she was striving earnestly to make
him happy. She struggled to overcome
the phases of melancholy to which she was
sometimes subject, to take an interest in
many matters, dull enough as they seemed
to her, because they made up part of his
life And Vincent, if at times in his in
most heart he was little mortified at her
apparent indifference to the extreme good
fortune that was hers, could not but ac-
knowledge that she was sweeter and gen
tier than when he had first won her, and
that she sometimes annoyed him against
his will. The pair had come into the gar
den one sunny evening after long
walk by white precipice which stands
gigantic and perpendicular out of the slate
colored sea- Mr.. Malone had Just arrived
to pay a visit of few days to his children,
and was in sentimental and extremely
happy condition. He sat in low chair
and awaited them as they came sauntering
over the downs, their figures silhouetted
against the purple west. At Mr.. Malone's
feet and all around him were large flower
beds of dazzling blue forget-me-nots,
brighter than the distant sea, and the faint
azure patches in the Eastern heavens
Kitty came up to her father and, throwing
one slender arm about his neck, kissed him
lovingly.
at is so nice to have you with US, papa
dear"
"And nicer still for me to be with my
children-my little girl and her hero"
Captain Pelham began making holes in
the gravel with his walking-stick He was
more of gentleman than his father
in-law, and had an almost morbid dislike to
hearing illusions to his past acts of daring,
references which were always coupled with
smile of triumph for his father.in-law
Mr. Malone would have been unable to
appreciate such fine gradations of feeling.
He, for his part, delighted in recurring
again and again to the war and its episodes,
and in Fostering Vincent with questions.
After tea had been drunk out of doors, the
good old man again referred to his favorite
topic.
"And what has happened now, Vincent,
my dear boy, to the sergeant, poor fellow,
whose life you were so nobly the means of
saving"
Kitty looked away at the glimmering
white cliffs and the expanse of placid sea.
''0h poor fellow, he's at Netley still;
just across the water over there. Tn
afraid he's done for. It's hard luck, be-
cause hesa gentleman, and might have got
commission one of these days"
There was a short silence then black
bird chirped loudly and flew over the lawn
into the bushes, while the crescent moon
came slowly into view over the cliffs.