Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1902-06-19

and she frequently and Intentionally
wounded his self-esteem. Then for
weeks he would devote himself to
another girl till, properly ~repentant
and fearful of his permanent alien
alton she would greet him with
Hello, Jimmie, Jimmie, Jimmie!
What have you done to your hair?
How funny you look! Poor little
Jimmie! Coming to take me for a
driver"
"Jimmie," weighing the proposed
peace offering, would surlily ac-
quiesce.
He thought her decidedly the pref
test girl he knew and would not
perhaps have doubted his love so
long had it not been for her poverty
and his own. He took a childish de-
light in the pretty clothes she wore,
for he had originated in a small town
where a woman's weekday garments
were of calico and her gala attire
black bombazine, and for days after
she had donned an especially effect
i've gown he would be very attentive.
But soon, realizing that it might one
day become his province to pay for
her finery, he would cool off.
And Miss Coles did not love the
professor; she merely preferred him
to the others in her tomboy fashion.
She was not the possessor of q large
heart. There was room in it for but
one passion, and that was filled by
an inherited one, the hatred, deep,
un~reasoning, relentless, of the Hon
orable Reading Payne.
In her walks about New York
streets, she often saw him driving
with his wife, the magnificent little
woman who would be heiress to so
many millions, and as she strobe
along in her calm, %assertive beauty,
she envied her the luxurious carriage
and French gowns, though she might
just as well have begrudged some
shriveled mummy it's rich wrappings.
And that man had ruined her father,
had deprived her of a hundred girl
ish pleasures which she felt to be
her right, had rendered it necessary
for her to make her own dresses, had
been the cause of her bending over
that horrid blue crepe de Chine all
afternoon.
Unconscious of any anti-climaX,
she would walk on, breathing fresh
drafts of hatred and wondering if
the time would even come when she
could be revcnged on him.
She was not literary in her tastes,
knew practically nothing of books,
but she had one day came across a
quotation in q newspaper: .....
And If we do bu watch the hour,
There never yet was human power
Which could evade, If u~nforgiven,
The patient search and vigil long
OF him who treasures up a wrong.
She cut this out and treasured it,
and often told herself that she would
like to meet the author. Yet, if any
one had asserted that she admired
Byron, she would have Indignantly
denied any acquaintance with his
works and have protested that she
had no desire to read disgusting
books.
AS her diversions were usually of
the nature of church fairs or sub
scription dances it often happened
that Mrs. Coles could not convenient
ly spare the money for Elizabeth's
share in them, or perhaps could not
supply the new dress necessary for
the function. And these little dis
appointments doomed large in the
girls horizon, and were all, she
thought, directly attributable to
Reading Payne.
Sometimes on n of those even
passed in dancing or at the theater.
she would fret herself into a head
ache, and even after going to bed
would stare wide-eyed into the dark
ness, spending the force of her young
soul in hatred. And not until she had
imagined that the rich politician had
a son who would beg to be intro
duced to her and upon whom she
would turn her back, or some other
similarly soothing melodrama, would
she go to sleep.
If he had only had a daughter over
whom her beauty might have tri-
umphed! She had once been present
at an "at home" where Mrs. Payne
had helped receive, and several
times during the afternoon had
caught the eyes of the childless wo-
man fixed upon her with q certain
usefulness which, strangely enough,
she had understood, and she met the
gaze of the plain, overdressed little
body with n cool stare of her hard
brown eyes, and then had surprised
her own mother by a strange, as
siduous sweetness, playing the role
of model daughter with now and then
a surreptitious glance at her sadly
observant enemy.
MISS SOltS hllcW VIA SuLlC UlHlC Vi
other Professor Leyburn would make
up his mind to propose to her, and
in Imagination she had refused him
a score of times, for she knew that
as the wife of a poor man she could
never hope to square the family ac-
counts with Payne. Yet she felt at
home an unconscious pressure toward
marriage in her mothers frequently
repeated you know, Lizzie, when
you are settled in life Jack and
will do very WELL" and she felt, too,
that with the burden of her support
off her brothers shoulders her place
would soon be filed by another.
So she wavered, fearing any marked
advance from the massive, easily
checked professor, but still keep
inc. him in line. 1t was not