The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1900-02-16
5elrft Misfrllunl.
A Royal Woman.

She was forty that day, and that day
was the first of January. Why she
should have been born at that time was
standing conundrum to Miss Dale
scarcely less difficult to solve than why
she should have been born at all. And
then, too, this day was the anniversary
of her engagement, and the date of her
loss.
Sixteen years ago bethrothed to the
man of her choice, fifteen years ago
parted, not by death-that would have
been light in comparison-but by
Well, she never let the words escape
her lips, so we will pass them over also.
He had loved another; he never
could have loved her; so it was all
right in the largest sense, and Miss
Dale felt like reprobate whenever bit
ter thoughts of her old lover crowded
into her mind. True, man who had
professed so much might have manfully
explained his change of feeling, instead
Of abruptly ceasing to visit her and
marrying another; but the mantle OF
Miss Dale's charity was large enough
to cover even this delinquency, and
the noble, large-hearted woman, went
her way as bravely as she could.
EVERYBODY said that Doctor Leigh
had forsaken Miss Dale from motives
Of expediency. Miss Clarendon, the
young lady he had married, was the
only daughter of a very wealthy and
popular physician, and, besides the
money his daughter would inherit, was
the practice, which must necessarily
fall into the hands of his son-in-law.
That Doctor Leigh was ambitious
Miss Dale knew, but someway she
never could bring herself to believe
that he had thus sold himself. Had
he not on innumerable occasions eX-
pressed his horror of marriages of con-
venience? And yet, while Miss Dale
did not ovcrrate her own character, she
could not help compare most unfavor-
ably the woman he had married with
the woman he had deserted and for
this there was good reason.
Miss Clarendon was recognized
belle at the time of her marriage. She
cared for nothing under heaven but
society, and this fact everybody who
knew her at all was acquainted with.
She was petite, graceful, coquettish,
possessed of excellent taste in dressing
in short, 4 social butterfly, with not
a single domestic proclivity.
The first time Doctor Leigh and
Miss Dale had met since the doctors
marriage was precisely a year after
their most singular parting, and on the
first of January. She had dressed her
self to receive calls as usual, for Miss
Dale was one of the women who could
suffer and not struggle-could die and
make no sign.
Her elegant parlors never looked
more cheerful and the hostess was
never more charming to her guests as
on this, to her, the saddest day of the
year.
OF course Doctor Leigh would not
call Upon her, she said to herself at
every new ring of the bell; anil yet un-
derstand it she could not. Something
kept whispering to her that he would
come, in spite of the constant protest
of her reason.
That something was loves true in
tuition, as stable and unerring in its
rule over the heart as the law of gravi-
tation to the world
When at last lie did arrive, Miss
Dale knew he was approaching before
his hand touched the bell, and, while
she waited his entrance, schooled her
heart to meet him with the Indifference
their changed position demanded.
"Miss Dale!'