Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1898-03-31

give himself blindly to any passion for
him would have been impossible. He
must look up and not down in his love.
And so he had waited ON, heart-free,
beyond his 30th birthday, so philosph-
ical under loves tarrying that to him
self he had come to profess a whimsical
belief that fate had willed he should die
bachelor, scarce conscious with what
growing force the burden of his lonely
life weighed upon his spirit, how in
sistently his heart hungered for the
solace and sweet companionship OF the
not impossible she who had vaguely
figured in his dreams.
But since his encounter with Doro-
thy Meredith in the rain he had found
great deal of time to think of women,
and of the one whom his reason told
him he would far better forget, his
enemy's pretty daughter. AThe episode
at the worlds fair had made a deep
impression upon him. For many days
he had recalled her looks, her ways,
her voice and smile, tantalized by long
ing to meet her again; but, then, man.
like, giving up all idea that the wish
further occupied by the troubles be-
tween the mines, which had come upon
him not long after, he had almost for
gotten the fancy altogether, until with
n shock he recognized her rs she
passed in at the door of the Windy
Gulch hotel one day and realized that
she was Col. Meredith's daughter. The
discovery seemed effectually to dispel
all the lingering glamour of the worlds
fair meeting; he had no smallest wish
to recall himself to her memory. Al
most, he could fancy, so keen was his
dislike of Col. Meredith that he could
read somewhat of her fathers charac-
ter in her face; while certain he was
that she was by no means so pretty as
he had supposed her that other time
when he had seen her in the twilight.
And then, as though in mocllery of his
self-deluson, fate had brought about
the encounter in the rain, when, in her
appealing helplessness and the frank
delight with which she had recognized
him, she had seemed ten times more
winsome than she had been before;
while the after meeting in the Tom
town road, when, prepared for cold re-
buff, she had surprised him with sweet
gentleness, had effectually completed
his conquest. He was over ears in love
with her. That he had met her but
three times all told, that she was to
him scarce more than an ideality, count
ed for nothing in the mad infatuation
to which he had surrendered himself.
With the fatuous reasoning of lover,
he felt that to him had been given, as
it were, a charmed eyesight, to compre-
bend her nature. It was as though he
had known her and loved her all his
life.
AS may be understood from this brief
sketch of his career, Harvey Neil was
not lacking in force of character or
tenacity of purpose; and no sooner had
he fairly diagnosed the sweet be-
witchery that possessed him than it
had become unalterably fixed in his
mind that Dorothy must be his. AT
first thought the difficulties to be en-
countered in carrying out this purpose
seemed but to inflame his eagerness.
He exulted in the thought of COM
batting the opposition which was to be
expected from Col. Meredith, of get
ting the better of that gentleman in
winning away his pretty daughter
from under his very nose; it was only