The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1900-03-23
A Latin Less on.

|
II was year since he had left Chicago,
| and nall that time she had heard moth
| ing from him. 1t seemed strange; they
! had been such friends-indeed more than
| friends. for he had seemed to like her
rnt1cu. and aat sought her society on ey-
| ery possible occasiot. The day before he
was 10 leave he mad come by appoiot-
ment TO zee hes. She had noticed with
| concern that his manner was chill and
| constrained, but had had no opportunity
! to dissipate that chill by her own cor
| diality. Although il was not their regular
reception day. the drawing room was full
| of people. and her sister, who was apt
upon occasion to nfonopolize her attention,
| never left them alone for a moment, al
though he prolonged his stay until after
the last visitor had left
Surely he will write" she had said TO
herself, and for weeks the postman's ring
had caused quick futter of the heart
which subsidized into the hull ache of dis
appointment when the longed-for letter
never came. She had heard Of him often
from common friends, of his success So
ciaIly and financially in the distant city
which he had made his home, and had
slowly and unwillingly resigned herself 10
the conviction that their friendship had
been but an episode. And row she held
in her hand the announcement OF his mar
rage TO another woman. She felt glad
that the family had regarded him as her
sis ters admirer.
Slowly she went upstairs to her room
and unlocked her desk, taking from an
inner drawer a small lstock Of treasures
a dozen notes, some dried violets, candy
box, ribbons, and other souvenirs equally
trf1ling She must destroy them now, she
was too old-fashioned to preserve such
Of another yT-OI11a NJ bIIShaT M
Violets and ribbons were soon in ashes on
the hearth, but each note in the packet
was opened and read before being sacri-
feed. She was naturally methodical and
they came in correct order. She smiled
bitterly TO herself to see how little there
was really in them. Even Mrs. Bardells
lawyer would have been puzzled TO find
on those pages anything tender or COM
initial. What a fool she had beeni She
finished the holocaust and turned to re-
place the empty drawer. 1t stuck and
had to be pulled out again. Looking for
the obstruction she found another note
the last ne-Which she had mourned as
lost. Now she remembered that she had
put it away, after reading it hastily, for
there were people waiting below. II an
nounced that he was coming to see her
that afternoon and requested that she
would not fail to be in. Just above the
signature was sentence in Latin, rapidly
and illegibly wTitten-his handwriting at
its best was difficult to decipher. She
started as she remembered that in the
hurry of that long-ago afternoon she had
put off translating the Latin. He knew
that she had studied the language, for
he had once asked her. seemingly apro-
pos of nothing, but she had not told him
that she mad forgotten nearly al of it
since leaving school. She rushed to the
dictionary and read understandingly for
the first time the neglected message, the
gist, as it proved, of the whole:
90 love of mine, my bleeding heart
lies at thy feet; deign to accept the offer
ing of they slave"
She had not been mistaken he had low
ed her after ALL but why Gid he-how
could he-trust a living story to dead
tongue? And why had she, however,
however hurried, left a word of that let
ter unread?
The letter was clutched convulsively,
the lexicon dropped 20 the floor, and her
head went down on her arm in passion
of futile tears.-The Chicago Tribune.