Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1895-09-13
A HEARTLEss WOMAN.
By ESTHER MILLER.

S%SssE1sSS>ZIs&> in the Cape
~ Times. Blanche
Douvcrie, the talented authoress OF
"Thc Blue Sunlower," was to arrive in
the Drummond Castle. Ostensibly q
desire to acquire local color" for her
next book was the object of her visit
to the Cape-an object that furnished
an admirable excuse for refusing the
proffered hospitality of her colonial
admirers.
you would spoil me and make me
see everything couleur de rose, and
want to know the seamy as well as the
sunny side Of South-African life" she
said, with gracious smile which for
babe olfeDse. So she abode ut .
hotel few miles from town, where
the air was scented with pines, and
vistas OF purple grapes showed through
the gaps in the cactus hedges.
In reality, perhaps, rcstlessncss and
love OF change as much as anything
else induced her to spend Christmas
far from home; bu she hated living ut
other folks house S; it reminded her of
the days before she hurried Mr.. Bou-
verie, before she became widow and
discovered she had temperament.
when she was girl at Miss Vests
academy and could cat boiled mutton
and rice pudding at one o'clock. Need
less to say, this woman of moods and
lenses was erratic as English weather.
Ere the voyage was half over she had
asked herself seriously why she had
embarked. Eighteen days of inter-
mittent mal-de-mer and amateur the
atricals, and an inconveniently hot cli-
mate at the end of it. She might lust
as we'll have located her novel in Lon
don or in Paris. In view of the Scot
fish villages, Italian sunsets and In
dian palms that had flooded the liter
airy market of late, commonplace life
in commonplace city known of every
body would have been quite refreshing.
But this bitterness had been largely the
result of perturbcd motion on the part
of the Drummond Castle. In optimis-
tic momcnts-when the terrors of the
Bay of Biscay were over and the decks
level-she had congratulated herself
on her enterprise, and resigned herself
cheerfuliy to q tolcrable week, an en-
/, durable month and then boredom in
the cause of art
AT any rate have my return tick
Ct" she thought, finding comfort
thereby. 81 wonder if am going to
be very dull?"
She was asking herself the same
question when seven o'clock on the
evening of the day of her arrival found
her the cynosurc Of all eyes at the
table-dhote of the Rustenberg Resi-
dental hotel, locally known as Van
Rhyn's.
Perhaps it vas with the Intention of
securing herself as much as possible
against such an undesirable condition
that she; by and by recognized the
presence, abashcd and dazzled, of her
right-hand neighbor. .jAIr Jack Folliot.
Masculine twenty-five failed to de-
light her rs rule, but all the other
boarders at Van Rhynss were merely
impossible. At any rate he couid listen
intelligently-the capacity appealed
favorably to woman who professed
to gain ideas from hearing herself
talk. And Jack was really nice boy;
delightfully."- ingenious and big-siie
AAENSNA oA9 AnCA-Stul uauuSOIuC. t9aNV1Ln
her wonted GOODNESS she told him SO
ere their acquaintance had extended
over twenty-four hours He blushed
with delight, and the same evening he
, announced In the smoking-room that
she was the wittiest, clevercst, most
fascinating woman he had ever met.
/; Still he evinced IN unaccountablc ten
dcncy to fight shy Of the charming
Bianche-to shirls the tete.a-tetes for
which many n man-about-town would
have given his ears. 1t almost seemed
as though he We're afraid of her. At
first she disbelicvcd the evidence of
her own senses, but doubt was dis
PEELED one afternoon when she asked
him to escort her on mountain ram
bic.
II should be delighted-fat !" he
stammered, flushing; but the fact is
have promised to take tea with nv
Cousin Joyce. We've are engaged,
you know. 1t is sort of family ar