Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1900-02-22

! "Do," says TIL elder lady. eneryetical-
ly. 1T will be original and attract at
/ tention. Not that you could well be
more stared at then than you are
Vera smiles and does not answer.
/ Mrs. Hazeldine goes on with her task.
| ..There! that's donew she cries at last,
getting UP from the table, and piling her
notes up in heap on one sid II it.
Now, am at your orders
She comes forward into the room-a
pretty, dark-eyed, oval-faced woman,
with figure in which her dressmaker has
| understood how to supplement all that
nature has but imperfectly carried out.
A woman with restless movements and an
ever-ready tongue-a thorough daughter
of the London world she lives IN.
Vera leans her head back in her chair,
and looks at her. "Cissy," she says, II
must really go home, | have been with
| you month to-day"
$50 home! certainly not, my dear
Don't you know that l have sworn to
| find you husband before the season is
out? / must really get you married,
| Vera. / have half mind" she adds,
refectively, as she smooths down her
shining brown hair at the glass and con-
| templates, not ill satisfied, her image
there-"I have really half mind to let
you have the boy if l could manage to
spare him.
DO you think he would make devot-
ed husband?" asks Vera, with lazy
SMILE
MY dear child, don't be a fool. What
is the use of devotion in husband? All
| one wants is good fellow, who will let
one alone. After all, the boy might not
answer, 1 am afraid, Vera" turning
round suddenly upon her, Il am very
much afraid that boy is in love with you;
it's horrid of you to take him from me,
because he is so useful, and l really can't
we'll do without him. / am going to pay
him out tonight, though; he is to sit OPP
posite you at dinner; he will only be able
to gaze at you."
Half an hour later Mrs Hazeldine and
Miss Nevill are to be found upon two
chairs on the broad and shady side of
the Row, where a small crowd of men is
already gathered around them.
Vera, coming up a stranger, and self
yited to the house of her old acquaintance
few weeks ago. had already created
sensation in London. Her rare beauty,
the strange charm of her quiet, listless
manner, the shade of melancholy which
had of late imperceptibly crept over her,
aroused keen admiration and interest in
her, even in that city, which more than
all others is satiated with its manifold
types of beautiful women.
Just at first there had been daily ter
ror upon her, that of meeting Sir John
Kynaston or his brother; but London is
a large place, and you may go out to
different houses for many nights rum
ming without ever coming across the
friend or the foe whom you desire or
dread most to encounter. After little
while she forgot to glance hurriedly and
fearfully around her every time she en-
tered ball room, or to look up shudder-
ingly each time the door was opened and
a fresh guest announced at dinner par
ty. She never met either of them, nor
did the name of Kynaston ever strike up
on her ear.
She looks happy enough now as she sits
by her friends side in the park, with a
little knot Of admirers ABOUT her; not tax
ing very much trouble to talk to them,
indeed, but smiling serenely from one to
the other, letting herself be talked to and
amused, with just word here and there,
to show them she is listening to what
they say.
Behind her, with his hand on the back
of her chair, stands a young fellow of
about two or three and twenty; he does
not speak to her much, nor join in the
merry, empty chatter that is going on
around her; but it is easy to see by the
way he looks down at her, by the fashion
in which he watches her slightest move
ment, that Vera exercises no ordinary
influence over him.
He is tall, slight-fgured boy, with
very fair yellow hair and delicate fea-
lures; his blue eyes are frank and pleas
ant, but his mouth is trif1e weak and
vacillating, and the lips are too sensitive
ly cut for strength of character, while
his chest is too narrow for strength Of
body.
Suddenly Denis Wilde felt a sudden
movement of the chair beneath his hand.
Vera had started violently.
Here comes Sir John Kynaston," the
man before her was saying to his COM
panion. "What time it is since he has
shown himself; he looks as if he had had
a bad Illness"
"Some woman Tilted him, I've heard, /"
answered the other man; ''some girl down
in the country People say, Miss Nevill,
he is going to die of that old-fashioned
complaint, which you certainly will not
believe in, broken heart! Poor old boy,
he looks as if he had been buried and
had come up again for breath of ARP
(To be continued.)