The Kinsley graphic. [volume] (Kinsley, Kan.) 1890-1940, 1898-11-11


bethought them that they must "do
something" for that pretty creature,
his daughter, and perhaps were a trife
relieved. on casting up her years. to
remember that she could not be more
than schoolgirl, and there was plenty
of time. And her aunts were such very
sensible women-no doubt they were
bringing her up to fit sense Of what
her fathers daughter might have to
look forward to; which they were not
doing at all, but were petting her, and
making as much ado over the child as if
all the good fairies had met at her christ
ening. They were not even attempting
to revise her innocent impressions of q
parent known to her chiefly through
his munificence in gifts and pocket
money. Her aunts never told her of the
carelessness that went with the munifi-
cence; of the lapses, when there were
no remittances even for shoes and
school-bills; nor how often their own
private means had been drawn upon, to
spare the little inheritance that they
held in trust from their sister to her
child. This money, they were resolved.
should not be touched, neither princi-
pal nor interest, while they were its
custodians; and in this way alone they
showed their prudence. For why should
she need to know, poor child. what the
world said of her father? They them
selves did not pretend to know or to
Judge him, but always, for the sake of
their sisterwho had known him and had
been silent to the last, they too were
silent. What the child's own mother
would never have told her, they be-
lieved that they. who stood in the
mothers place, had no right to tell
her.
When at last they were startled by
their brother-in-law's unexpected de-
mand that his daughter should follow
him into the far west, they knew not
what to say. They had no objections
that they could dare to offer now, and
they had no rights in the child herself.
that they could set against the right of
father; and Faith, as any girl would
be. was wild to go. They watched and
prayed, feeling as if some unhallowed
bargain, transacted long ago, in which
an unconscious life was the innocent
forfeit, had been fatally foreclosed. And
they had made no effort to prepare the
girl for whatever surprises, or shocks,
or ordeals, this foreclosure involved.
They could not have said just what it
was that they feared-simply they did
not trust the man, her father, and they
greatly feared the life to which he was
taking her. But they never questioned
that she must go.
Those gentle. unassertive, maiden
mothers who. with more than maternal
unselfishness, had fulfilled every duty
and made every sacrifice for their sis
ter's child, yielded her up to the natural
tie, and every one said that it was well
done. A few outspoken old gentlemen
who had no daughters of their own,
and one or two defrauded young ones,
declared it was a shame; but the wives
and mothers generally said that 1T was
the right place for Faith; all the more if,
as was limited, her father was not in all
respects just what he should be. So,
with no more preparation for the ex-
perience before her than girls have who
go to the altar with men they are eX-
pected to reform, Faith had journeyed
blithely westward, to cast in her life,
in the somber solitude of the Big Horn,
with that of the dull, hard, careless.
coarse old man on whom her instinct
had conferred every grace and dignity
of fatherhood.
And now, with her first trouble, her
woman's defensive strength of silence
came to her, and her letters to her aunts
were models of pious deception. To one
person only had she uttered word of
all her hearts shame and indignation,
and that one, as she remembered with a
burning face, had been all too ready to
listen.
At the Big Horn mine on Tuesday
night, there were indications that the
manager was expecting guests to din
ner. He had put on his senatorial black
frock suit, white stiff shirt, and light
tie. with a large diamond sparkling on
the full-blown folds of silk. Faith was
reluctantly lovely in the most reserved
of her simple, dainty dinner dresses.
Her simplicity annoyed her father. He
would have had her come before him
like Esther before the king. The table
was set for six persons, and there were
three wine glasses at each plate. There
were no flowers, nor any little feminine
touches about the rooms, to show that
the fair daughter of the house had
taken either pride or pleasure in pre-
pairing for her fathers guests; nor was
there in her face any of the brightness