The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1898-12-23


full of vitality as this King of Love.
Feasts Christmas itself"
Mrs. Weatherell was one of those rare
women at peace with self and the world,
despite the fact, that the latter per-
SISTED in believing her wretchedly I'M
happy AS pretty woman as one
meets in long days walk was Mrs.
Wetherell; nature and art fitted her to
shine in brilliant society. But Mrs.
Wetherell's beauty was of the spirit as
well as the flesh. Never was she known
to complain. The husband whom the
world dubbed miserable failure was
still to her the Prince Charming who
won her heart when she was toasted
the loveliest girl in her ''set."
At five and forty Mrs. Wetherell
judged all marital relations from her
own vantage ground-the love that is
eternal. 1t was this refreshing, Ar
cadian strain in her nature that at
tracted and held the affection of Eliza
beth Pentland, whose knowledge of
"men and things" had come from hard
knocks with the world.
II am sick unto nausea" sighed Mrs.
Wetherell, "of the problems involved in
the modern love story. How refreshing
it would seem to meet once more in
print love on the old familiar grounds!"
Fancy" laughed Miss Dashaway,
sketch artist of Good Form, 1.-THE tag
end of this century wading through
Jane Austen!''
Notwithstanding the speed and
spirit of the times" said Return Be
tram, sculptor who had outlived his
contemporaries, consequently his fame,
material for Jane Austen stories is not
wanting in our own day.
mo, not while you are with us, Be-
tram chuclSled the city editor, replen-
fishing the patriarchal chiseler's glass.
The oS-like eyes of the sturdy little
sculptor, dilating with the youth that
in art is never old. blinked knowingly.
"Betram has story he is bursting to
tell,' cried the city editor. Mrs. Weth-
erell has given linn the cue. wager
choice public is about to be supplied
with revised. annotated, up-to-date
edition of Jane Austen
Imagine Jane Austen of the Latin
quarters smiled Mrs. Pentland, with
an encouraging nod.
"For once the clever Mrs. Pentland is
in error" said the sculptor, settling
in his chair with the ease of a raconteur
sure of one telling arrow in his CULVER.
Nothing could be more remote from
the Latin quarter than this story which
the drift of the conversation makes SO
timely. rs 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
hall-room of the most imposing house
in the row. To Hillhouse's surprise,
his mirror one day reflected its occu-
pant, who riv.ted 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 frail little woman" he
said, at length, with certain faded
splendor, the splendor of brilliant au-
tumnal flower that deies drought
and frost, and with color and perfume
of its own, holds sway long after its
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
q faded splendor. discernible even from
Hillhouse's studio. A window-garden
Va Ol0-A06AAOAC0 OAOOAA dA0 q PAGAV4ANA@
| ly-stocked bookcase that crowded the
small apartment almost to suffocation.
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. Ilnow not whether
It was the style of her fress-the white
null fichu. closed on ~ low bosom to
fall in graceful folds 20 the hem Of her
voluminous dark skirt, or the outline
of the couture, SO like the mode preva-
lent when Hillhouse was the Beau
Brupmel Of his world-that attracted
his attention; 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 so
than in the flush of youth"
Just such chap as our own Be
| tram" interposed Pentland.