The age-herald., 1900-06-24

the neighbors last night and Dr. Felix at sunrise this morning"
 What did he say about it?'
 He said that he had lest his case-that typhoid fever case over in Swampton."
 "Oh, oh," said Dorothy, her eyes filling with tears, isn't it dreadful?'
 Tt is dreadful that any one with your genius should excite yourself even to tears about some one you do not know. All you have to do is to write. Do you not care for me, Dorothy? Can't you see what it is to me that you should succeed?'
 The mother spoke with a fierce earnest ness, her eyes burnt with a fire of wist- fitness, and her small face was tense with eager desire, and the daughters heart yielded, pity got the better of her judg- ment
 Well, mother" she said at last, q will try. l will do my best"
 So Dorothy glued herself to the desk day after day and week after week, but the inspiration which had produced her first article never came back to her except for a faint glow upon an occasional paragraph which could not lift the body of the story out of its dreary dearth of incident and plot She toiled on. losing health and spirits, she wore her hair in a tight knot at the top of her head, she had no heart for the iaunty costumes which once were her delight. Her mother shut her off from the home duties of which she was so fond and as far as possible excluded her from the society of her friends
 Tt is not possible for Dorothy to see you she was eyer saying to visitors aShes busy all day at her writing, and at evening She is too tired to see company"
 Poor Dr. Felix, he was only young vil- lage doctor working up a practice and very much in love with Dorothy. He did not know much about genius, but he was cer- tain that Dorothy was the dearest girl he ever saw. What was this sudden flight of genius that had caught her away from earth and set her like a fixed star in the sky, and where was the Jacobs ladder which he might mount to bring her down. and had he right to do this?
 These were the things Dr. Felix was thinking about as he went about among his patients. In the luls of his practice he went fishing. If the fish bit he could leave his string al the Greenhills; if not, he could lie on the bank and ponder over the prob- lens and think of Dorothy.
 Little did he know of what the dear girl Was passing through Shut up in small stuffy room, a stack of foolscap before her, pen and ink and a waste basket, and her head and heart like an empty nutshell All the lively fancies which had once reveled there were shriveled and dried to powder In vain she wrote words, words words. There was nothing in them Occasionally she ground out story and sent it off, but the dreary mss. was always sent back, and Dorothy was glad of it. She hated herself for writing such stuff, and she knew that she impoStor-not to the general public, whom she knew she never reached, but to her own village people. who were given to understand that she was a won derful being. She was not living up to what was expected of her. In vain she read the poets and gaZed at the moon and stars. In vain she sought romantic spots and tried to be infused with solemn and thrill ing emotions. There was nothing in it all. The truth that Dorothy had lonely heart; one little refrain of longing and grief was crooning away in her mind all the time.
 T should think he would want to see me I should think he would call. He has never come since that check came. Oh that story l wrote, and the thousand stories I can't write. I hate them all!''
 Then Dorothy would think of the look she had seen in Dr. Felix's eyes-that beaming, kinding glance of his, and she thought she would rather see that than all the grand sights of earth or sky. She would rather hear his voice and his laugh than all the bird songs and wlnd-dirges which the poets describe.
 One day when Dorothy's mother had turned the key in the study door Dorothy stepped out of the window and struck out for some woods near her home. Once under cover of their shadow she drew a long breath, she took off her hat and loosened her hair and started up stream following the course of the brook through
  up the hillside, steep it grew and sleeper until the brook became a babbling spark ling wa terfall, as it came over the great rocks. It was a romantic place and here, if eyer, a poet ought to have had poetic thoughts. Alas. for Dorothy.
 She had not one, she looked at the catnip in the crevce and thought of her sick kit tens, she just put her little white teeth into the water crosses she had picked and devoutly wished she had some bread and butter with them, then she took her last scrubbed bit of a poem out of her belt tore the manuscript into fine bits and dropped them into the water. As she watching the last one disappear in the shadowy dis tance she saw man come around the en- gle of the rock, he was wading in the brook, q fishbasket hung around his neck and rod in his hands, he wore great hat and a queer wet-water costume from head to foot. But Dorothy knew him afar off and her heart gave leap, though she looked as calm as a lily. As for pr. John Felix, in spite of the cold brook water he turned red as peony and his eyes shone as he lifted the flap of his hat and looked up at her.
 "Hellon he faltered. 'Ts it you?"
 Dorothy nodded and waved her hand. She hoped he would not see how glad she was; she looked so quiet when he came eagerly up the bank to her, and she made him go back again into the water and get the cat nip out of the crevice and she laughed outright when he lost his footing and went all ever into the deep pool but she sobbed hysterically because he did not come up right away, and she toolS her handkerchief and wiped the water off of his face, though her own face was streaming with tears and without intending to she called him ''my dear boy" and he said, You are the dearest girl Dorothy and he took her in his arms for good hug, though she was great genius and he dripping with cold brook water.
 What will become of the poetry and s16- ries when we are married?" he asked, when they were sitting together upon 'the sunny rocks, happy lovers in spite of wet clothes.
 'I haven't an idea, John; but I'll marry you and find out.
 Mrs Greenhill yielded to the inevitable as gracefully as she could. especially since it turned out that pr. Felix had lately come into a fortune. She wore a new vel vet gown to the wedding, it was Dorothy's present to her from the proceeds of her second accepted manuscript. For, strange u,ba Dnrothv's heart free nd