Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1902-10-16
WOODBURY., n. J, THURSDAY, OCTOBER Is, 1902

make, and maybe she would not want
| to stay, although he rather looked as
though he would have liked to have
had her.
But she left and then sat at her win
dow watching his shadow move to and
fro as it fell against the trees of the
garden. Suddenly she heard a splutter-
| ing explosion and strange cultural
cry. For a CHASTITY second she watched
the fitful leap Of lights on the trees. but
his shadow did not come back Then
she grabbed her water pitcher, full
happily, and the heavy rug on the floor
and ran into his room. She flung the
door open upon thin blur of flame and
fiickering tongues reaching like dane
! ing imps here and there in midair, and
| through 1t all something like a huddled
| figure on the floor. Up went the water
ahead of herself and over herself and
then the rug over the figure, and with
strength she hardly dared to think
could be in her tense muscles she
dragged it out toward the hall. Then,
wrapping her skirts around herself
with a quick turn, she tore down the
burning portieres that screened the
laboratory from the den, and, finding
the hose attached to the hydrant, she
set the spray over herself and over the
room.
By this time the others had come.
But it was really all over. She stag
gered out to look at Hugh. His eyes
were closed, his face blackened.
''Is he dead? Oh, is he dead?" she
said weakly.
Then, covering her face with her
burned hands as if fearing the an
swer, she sank down in a white heap
beside him.
The next day Hugh, who, though
singed and stunned, had been little
hurt, sat beside her and held her band
aged hands.
He watched the play of her features
as he talked to her, and it seemed to
him like watching an unfolding flower.
He caught himself wondering again
and again at some newly discovered
charm. What deep, fine eyes! What
singularly sweet and unaffected smile!
What an intimate gentleness in her
voice!
Mrs. Hetherington said one morning:
''How charming you are in that pale
yellow wrapperl You are quite trans
formed" And she passed her hand ten
derly over the girl who had saved her
last child to her.
Hugh said, "She is Cinderella, and
the fairy godmother has shaken the
magic tree over her."
And he did not know just yet that
the magic which was touching her and
him, too, was older even than fairy
godmothers.
He spent his spare moments now try
ing to please her, even as she had once
tried to please him. He told her over
and over again that it was her wit and
her speed and her dear burned hands
that saved his life after his stupidity
with the ether and the collodion.
'tAh, no." she would say. ''It was an
inspiration. / am not bit brave Of
myself"
''Do you remember" he said one day,
"your test of love"
She blusbed little this time. "You
never told me-" he went on, whether
you ever loved any one that way or
not"
She did not answer.
''Do you think that you could?'
He thought he saw a smile fit over
the face, bent away from him though
it was, and he took her hands that
were now healed, though still SCARED
little.
She raised her head and looked at
him, and Hetherington suddenly knelt
down before her and kissed her hands,
and then he drew her head down to
him and kissed her on the lips.