The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1902-01-02

dress fills with It's whiteness, and the
bouquet of orange blossoms. with its
acute perfume Of intoxicating virgini-
| ty. And it is then that. conquered by
the charm of that face, SO delicate and
proud amid its large, pallid curls, by
the splendor of those blue eyes, the
elderly bridegroom bends over her to
kiss her.
"Dear me, dear me"'
| And to see the tranquility with which
those finely cut, rose colored lips return
| the kisses through the veil, the ques-
ton arises whether it is the bridegroom
that she kisses or the Mechlin lace, at
500 the meter.
| All, there are adorers around that
beautiful Signora Marchis, so lovely
and so young, married to an old man!
1t was expected that this fortress
would be an easy one to conquer. Pre-
cisely on her wedding day Vico Molise.
the most elegant and skeptical of the
journalists of upper Italy, had pro-
pounded to his friends this theorism:
"Given a beautiful girl, very poor;
given that she marries rich old man;
divide the number of his years by that
of the hundreds of thousands of lire Of
which she becomes mistress, and you
will have the number of months neces-
| sary for her to take q lover"
And as soon as he could he began,
with many others, to attempt the dem
bnstration of that theorem.
Well, this time the impeccable psy-
Geological diagnosis of Vico Molise had
been found to fail. Not. only. after
some months, the beautiful Signora
Marchis had no lover, but it appeared
also that she never was to have one.
Always dressed with an adorable ele-
gance, with a luxury full of good taste,
the beautiful Comma loved to amuse
| herself. moving freely in that society
new for her, finding herself in her right
| place as marvellous plant in vase of
valuable porcelain, developing itself in
all it's splendor. She went to dances, to
the theater, enjoying the plebiscite Of
admiration provided by her beauty, CO.
quoting little with her adOrers, fut-
tering about the fire in order to make
them sparkle. her wings Of a golden
butterfly, but never letting herself be
burned. 49,.
In the very moment Of a declaration,
whose notes seem made on purpose to
stife expiring virtue in their serpentine
spirals. she cut short her adorer by
turning her angelic head and saying
sereIe!y:
Il don't see my husband. Look a
little where my husband is if you will
/! pe 50 kind"
Ard it was known that her greatest
delight was to relate precisely to her
husband the declarations which she
had received. When she came home
with him from ball, all wrapped in
the white silken folds of her sortie du
bal, with her pure throat, her snowy
shoulders that blossomed still more
fair from her swansdown boa; when
In the evening she met him in the din
Ing room, still In visiting costume, with
her slim waist tightly compressed by
an exquisitely elegant gown, with her
face animated by the slight excitement
which elegant conversation always pro-
duces in a young woman, she amused
herself immensely in addressing to her
husband some of these provoking and
roguish phrases:
You know l was at Countess Fo-
schis'. Molfse was there, you know
always faithful and always in despair.
And also Comelli, he that has such
lugubrious gallantry-he has promised
to kill himself for my sake within a
month. We shall see. All, ahv'
And, sitting opposite to him in
rustic of satin and jet, making shine
like two stars the brilliants, large as
hazelnuts, which adorned her small
ears, she continued to laugh. with her
elastic laughter, full of mischief and
full Of tenderness.
All, indeed old Marchis could call
himself fortunate man!
Fortunate? Yes, he ought to have
considered himself SO. When he set
himself to reason about it, to describe
mentally his conjugal situation, he had
to conclude that he would have done
wrong to complain of his destiny. And
yet
What Of the terribly unexpected had
he now discovered in the depths Of the
pure sapphire of Commas eyes? Was
there arisen in his soul the doubt that
that faithfulness against every trial,
that GOODNESS; toward her admirers.
was nothing but the wish to preserve
intact a position acquired with diff
Guilty and that precisely to that posi-
ton was directed all the tenderness
shown toward himself? do not know,
but the vivid and impetuous joy of the
wedding was no longer in him. al
though his love remained the same. and
painful doubt thrilled in his voice
when he replied to the playful conf
dence of Comma, forcing himself to
laugh too:
'Take care, now, take care-the ven
geance of the tyrant hangs over YOU
All, the poor tyrant! How he loved
her! How she had known how to bind
him with her little hands, white and
perfumed as two lilies! For nothing in
he world would he have discovered the
truth, changed into certainty his TO-
,onf;pr dD,1hf Go che had nn1u to n SIY