The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1896-10-12

going 70 meet. prepared q rope, and as
the sides Of our great bags touched /
threw one end into the oncoming basket.
As the other aerOnaut Strengthened up
from making the end fast / was further
astonished when my eyes met those Of
a beautiful young woman.
1.-THE line was holding rs only 10 or
- feet apart l took off my hat and, as
a total stranger, apologized for address
ing her. but hoped that the unusual cir
cumstances Of our meeting would excuse
my apparent rudeness. Besides, l fan
cied that her face seemed familiar,
though this, of course, was q fiat lie.
She smiled and gracefully accepted my
apology. She was young, bright and /
thought, the handsomest girl L had ever
seen. She was tastefully dressed in a
fancy costume, with skirts reaching just
below the knee
I'VE were soon chatting pleasantly
together, and / learned that she had
gone up Cor come up, rather, that after
noon from Melbourne, and had been
driving before the wind above the storm,
as had myself been doing. 1t was, she
said, only her third ascent, but she was
perfectly cool and laughed gayly over
our somewhat strange meeting. hap
pened TO look closely at her balloon, and
suddenly it struck me that it answered
the description of the one the signor
had lost / asked her delicately where
she got it, and she said that it had come
down one day in her fathers front yard,
and after diligent attempt to find the
owner by advertising in all of the Mel
bourne papers and putting up a notice
in the post Office she had decided to be-
gin making ascents with the balloon
herself, since there was ii heavy mort
gage on her fathers farm and danger of
his losing it if $500 was not raised soon.
''She was much embarrassed when l
told her that knew the owner of the
balloon, and instantly said she would
return it to him at the earliest possible
moment. l was by this time so taken
by her that 1 told her she should do
nothing Of the sort; that as the s1gnor
had got another balloon I would see
that she was not dispossessed, though l
had not the least idea how should ever
pay for it.
cat this she blushed, thanked me,
but said that mamma would not allow
her to accept such gift from compar-
ative stranger. I was deeply touched by
her delicacy in the matter, but resolved
that she should own the balloon never
theless. In fact, to tell the truth, I was,
as You may guess, falling in love with
the girl just as rapidly as it is possible
for any man to fall in love with any
young woman.
''And, to make long story short, by
the time the storm was over and we be-
gan to descend 1 was engaged to her,
subject to the consent of her parents.
AS we settled toward the earth and
gazed across into her great, liquid eyes
and saw there the light of awakening
love was the happiest man above the
Australian continent. But one dark
thought crossed my mind-that of my
utter poverty.
"We soon reached terra firma, and a
delicious thrill shot through me as /
touched her hand for the first time in
assisting her from her basket. then
turned and picked up a stone to use in
stalking down our balloons. saw some
thing CLEAN on it. 1 examined closely.
Gold! A glance showed more all about
on the ground. I used my stakes in
out claim. 1t became the eel
ebrated Gas Bag mine, of which you
have heard, and month later sold it
for 100000. We were married in
See here, judge broke in the
dominic, 4 thought this story was GO
ing to introduce an incident to prove
that lying is not demoralizingr
81 promised nothing of the sort, - re-
turned the judge. "This story is an ex-
ample, not an incident to prove any
thing. However there may be proof in
it after all. L have told it, and I'll
leave it to any one here if am democrat
lied. Hayden Carruth in Chicago
Post.