The Butler weekly times. (Butler, Mo.) 1881-1918, 1902-02-20
AT THELAST MOMENT.



ows were gathering in its dusky
ulcoves and corners. There had been
shower. and the ivy. which had for
i've wears climbed unchecked about
the north gable. nov, weighed down
10y the raindrops, hung in "A glisten-
inn mHss over the bay window. On
one side late blossDmIng rosebud
bent across the panes, with one sin
Gle remaining pale blossoms drop,
ping from it's stem.
Gilbert Steele sat in the green NOR
rocco library chair, which had been
his unrle's, gazing around tho once
familiar room Nothing was changed
in the five years he had been away.
There were the old fashioned fire.
y4laa.. the aleovr ith-thr bas, uf
Shakespeare, the great bay window
with its rustling ivy and the rose
l4F,thch dropping across il. And here
Gilher, thoughts went back To the
last time when he had stood in that
window and gathered roses,
How wildly it all came back TO
him, 1t was Just there, to the left,
TINT Lillian had stood, with the min
gled lamplight and moonlight gleam-
ing ON her golden hair, and lighting
up her pure face, A graceful girl,
fair and slender as a lily, dressed in
white, and with no ornament, until
he had plucked a cluster OF those
roses and placed them in her hair.
He remembered the act and the
blush which his whispered words had
calien into her cheeks. And then sud-
denly had come the rustic OF silk and
a CLEAN Of jewels, and Miss Lester
had fascinated him with her superb
beauty, and had led him off to the
waltz with scarcely a word Of apollo.
gy to Lillian.
She was only poor clergyman's
daughter, accompanying her invalid
mother to the neighborhood for the
sake of its healthiulness, and there
was no necessity for II brilliant belle,
such as Isabel Lester, to stand on
ceremony with her.
Alas for Gilberts first pure love
under the influence of this new en-
chantment He thought now OF how
she had kept him beside her through
out the evening-had carried him
away next day to the gayeties of
town, and there held him a captive
TO her arts, when suddenly the spell
was by her rejecting his offered hand
for that OF an old infirm man, whose
only recommendation was wealth
that far exceeded his own.
Then his eyes had been opened-he
had seen his idol OF clay-and, with a
bitter regret and remorse, his heart
went back to his old love.
At first shame had withheld him,
but when he could no longer restrain
himself he wrote to Lillian.
The letter was returned unopened,
with the information that Mfs, Ash
ley and her daughter had left East
cliff.
He subsequently, succeeded in trac-
ing them, but only to again lose
sight OF them. Mrs. Ashley was dead
and her daughter had gone abroad
as English governess.
Since then five years had passed,
and after many wanderings in dis
tant countries, to which either
business OF pleasure had called him,
Gilbert Steele found himself again in
his old home, in the ancient manor
house which, by his uncle's death,
had become his own.
His sister and his young cousins,
whose presence had once frightened
it, were married and gone to new
homes OF their own; and Gilbert as
he sat alone in the library, on this
October evening, felt the loneliness
very oppressive.
In the adjoining apartment a
bright fire blazed, and cosy repast
awaited the appearance of "the mas
ter
More than ohce the o II butler and
the motherly housekeeper had ven
tured to peep in and remind him OF
the fact; but, buried in a melancholy
reverie. he had again forgotten the
summons, and sat there, watching
the swinging ivy boughs, and the
pale rose nodding on its stem, in the
deepening twilight.
Suddenly the ivy branches were
swept aside. A delicate white hand