Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1895-04-25


the painful earth" flashed through her
being for the first time. AS every
maiden in all social conditions. be-
holds in swift and dazzling glimpse
the vision of aeeting pleasures not to
be her portion. and the brave knights
riding away two and two, the foun-
tain's basin may have served as the
crystal mirror Of the Lady of Shslott
to Dolores, giving back. as vet. the
blue sky above. To be young was to
resemble herself To be old was to be
like grandfather. She shuddered
slightly, and turned aside. with a
gesture of repulsion. Perhaps it would
be better never to grow old That
night the girl drifted softly away to
dreamland. Between shifting shadow
and ripping light, other than that of
the moon, she beheld a radiant shape
approach her door and pause on the
threshold. The accompanying footstep
which had echoed on her heart and
smitten sharply her brain, had been
clear and ringing with a vibrat-
ing, musical sound, unlike the
dull, shutting movements of grand
father around the house at all
hours Woven of the tissue of pure
fantasy was her sleeping thought.
mingled with the teachings of sanity
lives in the convent school Not the
angelic presenc of St Ursula this. but
the Knight of Malta, terrible, beauti-
full, awe-inspiring, his cross glittering
with phosphorescent ray, and his
drawn sword sparkling as the waves
of the Mediterranean CLEAN in break
ing on the shores of the island in the
midnight hour of summer Spurning
the clogging film of the obscuring
years in the portrait, he revealed him
self to her in his pristine strength of
noble and chivalrous manhood and the
soul of Dolores trembled in her breast.
He seemed to address her in a tongue
that reached her senses like the muir
muir of a sea she'll, or the songhing of
the wind through the trees
After that, Jacob Dealtry brought
the tiny dog Florio to the delighted
Dolores Her happy and careless tenn
permanent cast off the first somber i'm
preston of the incident She did not
forget the Knight, she even entered
y
unknown to her grandfather. She no
longer whispered to the pigeons and
the flowers but questioned the dim
portrait and wove histories about the
career of the hero; muttered poems,
vague. confused. and fleeting as the
rainbow spanning a dissolving storm
cloud. She artfully led her grand
father to converse about the history of
the island. Jacob Dealtry was a we'll
informed man in many respects, and
lie spoke occasionally, in connection
with some relic of stone pottery. or
glass discovered by him, OF the rule of
Count Roger of Sicily, the institution
of the Order of St John Of Jerusalem,
the first crusade. lie repeopled that
rock of soft sandstone called
Tufa, known as Malta, with genera
tons Of earlier inhabitants, until the
coming of the knights to hold the cita-
del against the Turk The little maid
at his elbow listened demurely, and
the old man may have experienced
some transient sentiment of gratifica-
ton in the awakening intelligence of
his granddaughter. He was ignorant
tAtshh tSRAOt 70, ~ Aetrs 4LS NllilC anu pace
with fancy's airy bow, linked each
glorious deed with the original
of the portrait Nay She ac-
tually became the heroine of
thrilling adventures, in which, about
to be swept away BY an invading host
of bold and brutal Corsairs, the Knight
Templar rushed to her rescue, and
drove off her assailants with prodigious
valor
These idle reveries resolved them
selves from roseate mirage into a solid
conviction III the mind Of the girl.
The Knight had built their Watch
Tower and protected them in humble
poverty, feeble old man and an ig-
norant child within his precincts. lie
still kept guard about the crumblinr
beacon at night When the sea was
rising. with monotonous beating on
the strand heralding an approaching
tempest, Dolores fancied She heard his
footstep of a sentinel coming and go
ing beyond the boundary wall
To-day, Dolores lost herself in pleas
ant dreams, as size worked on the pink
dress. TO render i sweet and sacred.
the heart must have little garden Of
its own with its umbrage and foun-
tains and perennial flowers; careless
company"
gro BE CONTINUED