Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1900-03-11
YOUNG MRS. M0NETTE;;
OR,
DIANA OF THE TOWER,
sealo"
Copyright by Jean H.
CHAPTER XIII.
Diana's Apology.

| miserable little singing wasp,
struck Fielding as sufficiently grave to
| warrant investigation.
i 1t was Mrs. Desbrow's day at home
He was sure of welcome If he drop
| ped in that evening. He found the
! family of three in the library when he
reached the house. Mr.. Desbrow, deep
| in his evening paper, Mrs. Desbrow and
Diana playing industriously with their
embroidery frames, silent group.
81 hope you have come prepared to
be very entertaining, said Mrs Des-
| brow smiling her welcome as he came
in, ''for between Willie and Diana
am reduced to despair. You know
don't get out as often as Il want to-
We are a dreadfully stupid trio
Fielding seated himself near her. u
missed you at the academy this morn
ing, but am sorry you had SO good an
excuse for not countenancing native
talent"
Then there was something worth
i looking at? Diana made me think diff
ferently."
He had seated himself where he
could watch Diana's face furtively
He had his own theory of her waspish-
ness. and he had come there to test 1T.
Something worth looking at!
should say decidedly there was.
am afraid Miss Towers has come back,
as so many Americans do, imbued
with the idea that all the pictures are
painted on the other side by foreign
artists"
THAT would be horrid snobbish-
ness" Diana laid down her work and
looked at him with frank directness.
81 wish you would tell god-mamma
about the pictures. have not done
them Justice. | couldn't. | didn't see
any of them in passionate climax.
Didn't see any of them! Why,
child?"
But Fielding took the matter into
his own hands. Diana's hot cheeks
stirred his pity. He laughed the mat
ter aside:
II suspect Miss Towers goes to acad-
envy openings somewhat as she would
to a milliner's. l know my dear sis
ter Mildred does. She can always tell
me more about the bonnets her friends
wore than the pictures her friends
painted"
Diana WINGED, even while recogniz-
ing that she had been tided over ra-
Their difficult spot. Of late her rela-
lions with Fielding had been thor
oughly pleasant. Something had gone
out of his manner that relieved her OF
that queer feeling of impending doom.
He no longer frightened her with the
loyer-like advances that had once up
on a time made her almost hate him.
Why he had changed, she did not
know She only thanked him for 1t,
in her heart That he had changed
neither Mr.. nor Mrs. Desbrow sus-
pected Both of them looked serenely
forward to the time, when weary of
his vain search into her antecedents,
he would marry Diana for her own ir-
resistibly sweet self, confident that no
ghosts from out her past were likely
to stalk into their united future.
With the>n new freedom that had
come into her manner toward him
since she was satisfied that he was not
her lover, she flashed a saucy glance
at him now:
well, let it stand ct that, and, now
that you have annihilated me, tell
dearest about the pictures"
And resuming her work she dropped
her face over it in entire absorption
over some very dubious morning
glories Fielding gave Mrs. Desbrow
his attention to the apparent exclu-
sion of every other idea.
1.-The exhibition was we'll worth a
visit from any one interested in ma
tive talent. There was a little knot
Of US, particularly interested, of course
in the work of young Holbrook"
He detected Diana in the act of
staunching a drop of blood on the tip
of her finger. She had pricked it
sharply.
Not" he concluded smoothly,
simply because his work is truly ex-
cellent, but because his friends are
cognizant of his noble efforts to live
down the memory of a very bitter ep-
isolde in his life and they want to
help him."
He observed that Diana's needle
made no motion. Mrs. Desbrow felt
the necessity of saving something.
She glanced at her husband He was
deep in the stock quotations I'VE
heard how good you were at that
that horrid time"
Horrible, indeed, for him. That
experience went far to show me how
completely at the mercy of a con-
scienceless reporter every mans re-
putafion may be- There was this