Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1898-04-11

| Vile children younger than Betty, and
all Enthusiastically favoring their
swarthy mother. They were so dirty
that they were disgrace to the post.
But Betty was tidy-as to dress-and
was blonde, with fine skin and in
nocent blue eyes and rosebud mouth.
1t was said she looked like an Eng
| lish professional beauty; but there
was no one to recognize the startling
likeness to the concert-hall grand
! mother. She had a taste for laces
and hosiery, and high-heeled slippers
| that may have been either Spanish
or theatrical Inheritance. And she
was beautiful beyond question, with
a beauty that was only skin-deep.
After she had promised to marry
the second lieutenant, Betty went
down to- Lowell to visit her aunt, who
was her mothers sister and was the
wife of Captain Locke. Betty knew
that she would enjoy herself more
| if the engagement we're kept secret
She could keep it quiet, because it was
in the good old days and news travel
/ GU 01OW1y CLlIO O1OCOAOOO VOAO 81 Ne"S'
Mrs. Locke was nothing to be proud
of, but Betty, who detested her mother
and all of her mothers family, liked
her uncle well enough, and got along
famously with him despite his tenn
per. She could herself understand
might change a naturally placid dis
position.
On the second day of her stay her
aunt took her to stay over night with
Sonora Franquelo in Tucson. Which
was the beginning.
The Franquelo family was large,
and most of it dwelt in the one house
AN adobe with the external white
wash broken off in oddly shaped
pieces, and built as all adobes were
built in the good old days-one story
around a courtyard. There was moth
| ing in the courtyard but chickens
and ollas-broken and otherwise for
| the soil of Tucson is not fertile. Out
| side, where the narrow doorway faced
| upon the street, hardly less white I'M
der the burning sun than the whiten-
ed walls that lined it, a mocking-bird
cage of willow hung against the
house, with a red chile stuck between
it's bars. 1t was the first time Betty
had been under the ancestral roof.
| Beside her grandmother, who was
more unpleasant than the aunts, there
were many cousins male and female.
OF these two-second cOusins-were
in love- They were Carlos and Ines.
In less than ten minutes Carlos had
deserted black-browed Ines and was
languishing at Betty with his two
soft eyes. Ines was openly wretched,
Carlos openly infatuated Betty open
ly flirting. But Carlos. did not know
that.
Betty and her aunt went back t.
Lowell the next day, and the same
evening Carlos rode over to the post
to see her.
There were six officers calling on
Miss Vaudeville, SO Carlos sat aparl
and sulked; but he outstayed them all.
When they had gone, after a supper
of canned-oyster stew and tamales,
he drew his chair close beside the
sofa upon which Betty was half re-
Ginning.
"Wy do you like doze ooffeecers
better dan me?" he asked her.
81 don't" said Betty, they're a
BORE"
"Do you moot, truly?"
"Of course I don't; how could II"
Carlos was not accustomed to Bet
tvs like, and, as even those who
should have known better had be-
lieved her because of her round, blue
eyes, he was not to be blamed for
his faith. would you raider talk to
me?"
ga great deal rather"
"But dey hat staid so late dat I
must soon co.
''It's not late. It's only half past
twelve 1t would be too bad of you
to go just when we begin to get a
chance to settle down for nice. cozy
talk"
Carlos persisted coyly, "But you
weel weesh to Sleep"
"Very WE'LL" Miss Vaudeville shrug-
ged her shoulders, ''then you had bet
ter go. Ines may get angry if you
stay, and you like her more than you
do me"
Carlos denied this in words that
were neither kind nor just to Ines;
but Betty damned her with faint
praise.
She was not clever conversational
list, nor was Carlos Franquelo, but
they kept each other interested until
very late, and when Carlos went
home, Betty stepped out to the front
nnrnh with him and NIT her hand in