Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1901-09-30
JENNIE WON HIS LOVE.

being perfectly heartless. Which pos
sibly accounted for the frequency with
which such articles were proffered her
said hearts being all of the mascu-
line gender; from which do not con
clude that my heroine was coquette.
for she was not She never fiirted;
hers was far too earnest and serious a
nature to descend to idle trifiing.
Ii surely was not her fault that she
was beautiful as a modern Helen.
graceful, witty. accomplished and in
tellectual; it was not her fault that her
gentlemen acquaintance fully appre-
ciated all these projections. and proved
their appreciation by persistently fall
ing in love with her
She never encouraged them. She ae-
cepted or declined their attentions with
quiet stately politeness, and when they
arrived at the proposing point she met
them with a decided. unequivocal NO
which answer they always expected.
and invariably risked They could no
more help telling her of their love
than they could help loving her.
People were always wondering why
with her chances, she did not marry.
She was "a, and her lady friends hoped,
for goodness sake. she did not want to
be an old maid They would have
been glad enough to have seen her
safely married for she was very much
in the way of their own matrimonial
schemes.
But Olive gave them little hope of
such an event. She went on, refusing
brilliant offers with frigid obduraey,
for which her friends could only ac-
count by supposing her to be without
that susceptible o~gan-a heart. And
50 they called her "Heartless Olive
They knew as much about 1t as they
generally 40 in such cases. If society
could have had one glance at the pas
sionate heart of the woman 1t called
SO cold and unimpressible. 1t would
have spoken a different verdict.
Not one of those men who worship
per her so madly, who listened to her
relentless No with such bitter de-
spair, not one of them knew what 1t
was to love with such a love as she,
"Heartless Olive" was wasting on the
one man who did not want 1t.
Society did not know him: Mrs.
Grundry had never heard of any such
person as Elmer Cardell. How should
she. indeed, when he was nothing more
than a vulgar mechanic, Actually, a
mechanic! A fellow who she had first
seen in a leather apron, hammer and
chisel in hand, hard at work in her
uncles machine shop.
There was nothing in particular
about him to attract one so critical and
fastidous as Miss Durande. He was a
very commonplace looking young
workman; there was something plea
ant in his expressive mouth and frank.
honest. brown eyes, and his whole
manner impressed one with the idea
that he would be a safe man to trust.
But other such men had loved Miss
Durande in vain.
Olive Durande was rather peculiar.
So. while the rest of the gay party fol-
lowed her uncle around the shop and
looked at gears and stared at pulleys
and nodded wisely over explanations
which they did not in the least under
stand, she stopped and talked with
this grave. good faced young man, who
attracted her so strangely.
He looked a little surprised at first,
when she stepped beside him and ask
ed him some question about the COM
plicated model on which he was at
work. 1t was an unusual thing for
any other young lady to have done, but
quite natural for Olive Durande.
There was a little flash of admira
ton in the young mans eyes as they
looked at her beautiful face, so fair
and proud and sweet, with its exqui-
site features, so perfectly regular the
great dark eyes that looked so grave
ly interested.
But his manner, though admiring,
was utterly respectful; prince could
not have replied to her questions
more courteously. And his language
proved him by no means ignorant.
Pleased with his manner his lam
guage and himself, Olive continued to
talk with him. From the particular
specimen before them she turned to
the subject of machinery in general,
and from that she wandered off to
other suggested subjects, and when her
friends came back to look for her she
was actually discussing some philoso-
phical principle with this mechanic.
':Why, Olive" cried her uncle, what
have you been doing all this time? |
supposed you had gone down in the
Office
Il was examining this interesting
model" smiled Olive, land troubling
this gentleman to explain all about it.
I dare say have bored him fearfully;