Semi=weekly graphic. (Pine Bluff, Ark.) 1895-1902, 1896-07-29
CHAPTER III.

friend of Phyllis father concerning
Mr.. Humphrey Gould, her remarkably
cool and patient betlothed. This gentle
man had been heard to say in Bath that
he considered his oyertures to Miss
Phyllis Grove to have reached only the
stage of half understanding, and in
view of his enforced absence ON his IA
theirs account, who was too great an in
valid now to attend to his affairs, he
thought it best that there should be no
definite promise as yet ON either side.
He was not sure indeed that he might
not cast his eyes elsewhere.
This account, though only piece of
hearsay, and as such entitled to no alb
solute credit, tailed so well with the
infrequency of his letters and their lack
Of warmth that Phyllis did not doubt
its truth for one moment, and from thai
hour she felt herself free to bestow her
heart as she should choose. Not SO her
father He declared the whole story to
be fabrication. He had known Mr..
Gould's family from his boyhood, and if
there was one proyerb which expressed
the matrimonial aspect of that family
well it was Love me little, love me
long. Humphrey was al honorable
man, who would not think of treating
his engagement so lightly DO you
wait in patience, he said. ''A1l will be
right enough in time .
From these words Phyllis at firstly
imagined that her father was in CORE
spondence with Mr.. Gould, and her
heart sank within her, for III spite Of
her original intentions she had been re-
ieyed to hear that her engagement had
come to nothing. But she presently
learned that her father had heard no
more of Humphrey Gould than she her
self had done, while he would not write
and address her fiance directly on the
subject lest it should be deemed an inn
putation on that bachelors honor.
"You want an excuse for encouraging
one or other of those foreign fellows to
hatter you with his unmeaning atten-
tions, ;" her father exclaimed, his MOOD
having Of late been very unkind one
toward her. 81 see more than I say.
Don't you ever set foot outside that
garden fence without my permission. If
you want to see the camp, I'll take you
myself some Sunday afternoon "
Phyllis had not the smallest intention
of disobeying him as to her actions, but
she assumed herself to be independent
with respect to her feelings. She no
longer checked her fancy for the hus.
sar, though she was far from regarding
him as her lover in the serious sense in
which an Englishman might have been
regarded as such. The young foreign
soldier was almost an ideal being to her,
with none of the appurtenances of an
ordinary house dweller. One who lad
descended she knew not whence, and
would disappear she knew not whittier.
The subject OF a fascinating dream-no
more.
They met continually now-mostly
at dusk. during the brief interval be-
tween the going down of the sun and
the minute at which the last trunpet
call summoned him to his tent Per
haps her manner had become less re-
strained latterly. At any rate, that of
the hussar was SO. He had grown more
tender every day, and at parting after
these hurried interviews she reached
down her hand from the top of the wall
that he might press it, One evening he |
held it so long that she exclaimed,
''The wall is white, and somebody in
the field may see your shape against it. "
He fingered so long that night that it
was with the greatest difficulty that he
could run across the intervening stretch
OF ground and enter the camp in time. |
On the next occasion of his awaiting her
she did not appear in her usual place at