The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1898-08-04

JACK nave pledged them to another.
The gilded bars are to be mine, after
all, not the home pervaded by loves
sunshine, yet it is my own choice. Il
is as you said. The glare and glitter
has been more than my weak eyes
could bear. I have promised to love
the man who is to be my husband, but
the love he requires is more easily
given than that the birds echoed and
the flowers blessed. 1 think, after all,
my heart is buried on the spot where
you and parted. Let us hope it never
may be resurrected. Jack, Jack, for
give mel"
So Dennis Doane had done this
work. Her letter once dispatched, Mel
lie forbade thought to enter more and
dreamed that in her new life she had
found happiness, while he who had
gained her for his own looked on her
wondrous beauty and gloried that
with wealth unlimited at his command
so fair a bride should grace his hand
some home. The sweetly solemn words
of wife and mother were to him IN
known.
But her visit was approaching its
close. 4 few days more and she must
return to her home, when the prep
arations for the wedding were to be
hurried as speedily as possible, and in
the new year Dennis Doane was to
come to claim her. It was the ex-'
element, she thought, which made
her head throb so heavily as she laid
it one night on her pillow and caused
her cheeks to burn so hotly, while she
tossed to and fro, wooing sleep in vain.
They knew otherwise when they
found her delirious and fever-stricken
in the morning, and their fear arose to
panic when the physician summoned
shook his head and pronounced it the
fearful scourge of smallpox.
For many weary days and nights the
poor girl knew not the dread enemy
which had overtaken her. The house,
which had been ever filed with gay
merriment, was silent and deserted,
while the shadow of death in it's most
horrible form hung dark and dismal
over it. But there came a day when
it lifted it's somber wings and flew
away, and those who had well-nigh
despaired knew that Nellie Leonard
would live. In the early dawn, when
her attendants thought her sleeping,
when the wonderful crisis had been
passed. lying awake and alone, she
first realized the full consciousness OF
all that had happened. But it was
Jacks hand for which she longed to
press her fevered brow; Jacks lips
once more to meet her own, as in the
silence and the darkness her own
heart stood revealed to her.
Perhaps if she told him she had re.
pented, if she proved to him that her
illness had taught her the poverty OF
all she thought wealth, he might for.
give her and once more take her back
to his true, manly heart. And with
|, this thought to soothe and comfort her
she closed her eyes and slept.
A week later, and with strength and
fuller consciousness came dim won
derment as to the ravages of the dis.
ease. She asked for mirror. The at
PENDANTS pityingly turned away, but
she would have her demand complied
with. Once She glanced into it, then
asked to be left alone. For hours she
lay silent and motionless, only now
| and then tear finding it's sad way
down the cheek whose first bloom had
| forever fed. Then she called for pen
and paper.
1.-THE beauty for which you loved
me- she wrote, with firm hand, ''has
| vanished. I would that all is left had
been hid by the coffn's lid, but Gods
| way is not our way, and He decreed it
otherwise. You asked me to grace
your home, can no longer do so, since
you would turn shuddering from my
presence. Therefore. release you"
Then came in answer a few cold
words of coincidence and regret, but
no petition that her decision be re-
yersed, and Nellie Leonard's life once
more belonged to her to do with az
she would. But such a shattered,
changed life! Jack never would be-
lieve now that had all been different
she still would have burst her links OF
gold and asked him once more to bind
her in the chains of love. Home!
Home! This was the cry of her heart.
And at the first hour her physicians
gave consent. By slow, careful stages,
she was carried back to the home she
had left so bright, SO joyous. The dis
ease, after all, had been far more
merciful than she had at first sup
posed. 1t was still face of fair
beauty, with but here and there some
slight blemish to prove it's finger had
but touched her and passed by, but
she covers it shudderingly in both
hands when Jack Harold first enters
the room where she sits. A great rush
of tenderness comes over him. as he
notes the action, and he approaches
her SIDE
'Nellie, is this true, that your life il
yours to do with as you will-that no
other can assert right in it's posses
sion? If so, will you once more, my
darling, place it in my hands?"
| Then she raises her face to meet his
and Jack starts.
II thought you altered, darling, but
you are all unchanged. It is not true,
perhaps" he adds, sadly. II have
heard wrongly"
mo, Jack" she says, finding voice
and springing to her feet. IF you will
take me with my. beauty gone, oh, how
glad I shall be once more to rest in
your love! 1t has been my punish.
ment, Jack-a fit one. It is also fit that
I should suffer-