Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1900-02-24
THROUGH FIRE
AND WATER
BY Lillian Langdon.

'I1l come to you, lass, through fire
and water
so spoke Harry Du Val to Edith May
as the two sat in front of the glowing
fireplace that winters night.
ut is sad, lassie, to leave you. God
knows it is. But" n fhe break in
Harry's voice told the tale which Edith
how Harry had to leave the little vii
lage where they had both grown up
together, and go UP to town to earn a
living. 1t recited to her i'm pitiful tones
the story which they had often whis-
pered together, Of the little brothers
and sisters and the helpless mother
who depended upon Hairy; and it told
her again of the one pair of hands
j which must maxi a livelihood for them
all.
It was hard, terribly hard: and both
Edith and Harry felt 1T as they sat in
the little parlor that might in January,
and talked it over again.
Harry must leave on the morrow. n
as for Edith, she felt that the future
stretched before her dread and dreary
without Harry.
Scarcely six months had passed and
yet what changes had come into Edith's
life. Suddenly deprived of her father
and mother, she had been compelled
to seek the great city-tne city where
Harry had gone that day-to
make for herself a place In the busy
hum of bread winners. Edith brushed
a tear from her eyelids more than
in the distance and in it's place come
| the trees and roads whizzing past.
Oh, the big city. How she dreaded
1T. Yet she longed for it, for Harry
was there.
Edith sighed and felt the hot tears
| trickle, as she closed her eyes and
| leaned her head wearily back and tried
not to think of Harry: for in the six
months that had passed she had heard
from him only once. q brief note.
ri shall never see him again." she
moaned to herself: never again.
The hum of the train sounded in
Edith's ears until she fell asleep from
very WEAKNESS, not to wake until the
The life of a girl toiler In New York
is one of trials and temptations. From
shop to shop Edith drifted, her pretty
face winning for her a place. which her
hoId. II am SO tired. so tired" she
murmured, night after night, as She
toiled to her attic; "Oh, IL I could only
diet"
or Harry. Edith saw nothing. He
was as completely swallowed up in the
great city's vortex as though he had
never lived; as for Edith. she hid under
another name, and not even her OLD
friends in the little village of x could
find her. IF ever I get rich and happy
/ i Sldl kO lCNlC ~ OoI ~ ~
FORE, she said once, when, happening
to pass a merry party in the street
she recognized some of her girlhood
acquaintance in town for a lays
shopping.
On this night Edith .ached in every
bone and fibre of her sensitive being.
"Weary unto DEATH she was she told
herself, as she pulled her weary limbs
up the long narrow staircase until She
reached the little hall room on the tor
floor which she hired for a miserable
sum, and where she cooked her meal:
night and morning, often going hungry
at noon because the pennies were ST
scarce. The flower of the meadow
, paled under this treatment, and. little
by little, Edith had grown a ane
nstless with nothing of her own SCI
remaining but the bright beauty OF hel
wonderful eyes.
Things had been hard that day and
too tired to cook her m meal
Edith had thrown herself upon the bet
to sleep. At once she fell into a heval
slumber and not even the great clamol
outside, nor the roar of fire engines
, wakened her. !.
when at last she opened her eyes l
, was to n the room filled with smoke
Dazed, she rushed to the door to -.
, the flames leaping up uhe STAIRS ana al
hope from that direction cut off. :on
God!". she cried, .it has come at last
) 1 prayed for death last right"
With frightened eyes she glance'
, down into the street at the ~rowd be
: low. Then she held her arms out t
: them and shouted. knowing that he
voice would be drowned in the awfu
din below.