The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1898-12-22

the Latin quarter than this story which
the drift of the conversation makes so
timely. To be candid, my chief pur-
pose in accepting Mrs. Pentland's hos
pitality was to recount Hillhouse's ro-
NANCE"
HE was my best FRIEND" continued
Betram, encircling the table, with a
second significant twinkle; II may say
lifelong friend. About year ago
Hillhouse was called to Darlington to
work on the equestrian statue of which
you may have heard. He took studio
in back bay house that had outlived
not only prosperity but gentility. The
studio confronted formidable row of
dwellings in very similar state. These
houses were occupied for the most part
by dodgers and mealers of various ages
and colors and conditions of servitude.
In intervals of inspiration, and they
were not infrequent with Hillhouse, he
fell, between whiffs of his pipe, to spec
ulating on the daily occupation and the
heart stories of his heterogeneous
neighbors. One of his studio windows
looked almost impertinently into a
ballroom of the most imposing house
in the row.. To Hillhouse's surprise,
his mirror one day reflected it's occu-
pant, who rivtted his attention with
a fascination almost as irresistible as
that which wrought the ruin of Paul
Pry." Betram paused. The interest
in his auditors eyes urged him on.
'She was a frail little woman he
said, at length, with certain faded
splendor, the splendor of brilliant au-
tumnal flower that deties drought
and frost, and with color and perfume
of its own, holds sway long after it's
garden companions lie withered and
dead. She rarely went out save in the
flush of the morning or late in the twi-
light. Her room, like herself, bespoke
a faded splendor, discernible even from
Hillhouse's studio. A kindergarten
of old-fashioned bloom and plentiful
ly-stocked bookcase that crowded the
small apartment almost to sufrocation,
absorbed her days. ~
Certain hours she was wont to sit
in the window, an open book in her
lap, her heavily-fringed gray eyes lost
in invisible worlds. know not whether
it was the style of her dress-the white
null fichu, closed on the low bosom to
fall in graceful folds to the hem of her
voluminous dark skirt, or the outline
CT the col Hure, so like the mode preva-
lent when Hillhouse was the Beau
Brummel of his world-that attracted
his attentions; but the sculptor soon
found himself modelling her delicate
profile. Hillhouse, it goes without say
ing, was bachelor, in whom the wine
of youth was scarcely less beady at 50
than in the flush of youth"
8 "Just such chap as our own Be.
tram" interposed Pentland.
Z "H;llhouse's faith, devotion may say,
to the ideal in life. as an art" continued
Betram, has survived the gross mate
rialism of the times with which ad-
vancing age found him scuriously in
and out OF tune. Away back in the
golden youth lay his romance ro-
nance that unconsciously shaped and
colored his life, lending a perennial
freshness to the man, which he strove
to impart to his work. AS the delicate
features Of his unknown neighbor grew
under his deft touch the chords of mem
DRY awoke, and Hillhouse had begun
to revel again in that golden past, when
suddenly his model moved.
"A carriage with the livery Of an
exclusive world had drawn up at her
door. A. lady mufaed in sable alighted,
and soon Hillhouse beheld his little