The Grit-advocate., 1903-07-03

of her nervousness. her restless ac-
tivity, to perplex and mystify his grave
and dienified father.
All legends which he had ever read
of elfin children and changelings came
back to hdelbert Nye's memory during
the confused years which followed
years in which his son was the wonder
as well as the despair of physicians
and nurses: when the period of his
teething became an epoch, when the
violence with which he took, one af-
ter another, and survived the various
diseases of babyhood furnished the
subject matter for learned papers at
countless medical conventions; when
the tabled nine lives of the domestic
cat became too Insignificant for no.
tice by comparison with the falls and
4 jumps and fractures the maladies ex-
ternal and internal of Welcome Nye,
which went to prove what could be
endured with the minimum of vitality
in the frail and emaciated form of a
boy who was destined to live for the
trial and long suffering of his kind
So the child continued to grow, and
to become the terror as well as the de-
spair of nurses and teachers. The
house servants, who had perfect hor
ror of him, referred to him affection
ately among themselves as THE
Divvle," memory of night when
one of the maids, in the enjoyment of
a twilight interview with her favor
ite policeman, looked up to shrek with
dismay, as the elfin child. astride the
lofty garden wall, laughed in ghoulish
glee at their tender farewell.
"May the divvle be your welcome."
had growled the disconnected guard
ian of the peace, as his eyes followed
hers; and since that time the appro-
priateness of the epithet has grown
upon the household.
While his distracted father could
reconcile himself to the boys physical
weakness and defects, it was heavy
cross to bear the knowledge of the alb
solute lack of what the world deems
education on the part of his son. His
son! And he himself was counted
scholar an ornament to his profession;
might be elevated to the bench if he
as the author of certain deep and
thoughtful papers upon historic and
oentific topics; had, in fact, all the
points of the cultured gentleman and
modest scholar Oh. why, why had
Fate punished him by making him the
father of such son, who managed to
elude all obligations to study. because,
forsooth, the doctors declared that he
must not be urged or worried, or ex-
cited
He was now, was Welcome, but
spindling and undersized and wizened.
his sharp features and diminutlVe
hands and feet causing his unhappy
father to sigh whenever he noted them.
Surely there were Darwinian sugges-
tiors about the uncanny and repulsive
form of the boy whose defects were
never so apparent as when Adelbert
Nye contrasted his offspring with the
beautiful children of his neighbor, the
fascinating Widow Carleton.
1t was strange that they should have
met again, after her long absence in
England.
Adelbert Nye and the beautiful wom-
an, who, as Leila De!and, had been
friends in youth-and more. He
thought of it all as he walked slowly
homeward in the moonlight. after his
first call at the villa where she was
established for the season, oh. shades
of love and poesy! with her twin
daughters!
Twins. Adelbert Nye deprecated
the slang of the day; yet had he put
his thoughts into words, and these
words into the vernacular, he must
have murmured something about the
fact of twins In connection with the
81 etheart of ones youth being calcu-
lated to jar even a dignifed member
Of the bar!
And, more horrible s.t'l. one Of the