The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-05-30
4 HILLSIDE GRAVE.
A STORY FOR DECORATION DAY
 By Mrs. Gen. George E. Pickett.

By Mrs. Gen. George tt- fickeu. | Copyright. 1905, by Daily Story Pub. Company)
 T am happy to tell you, Madam" said pr. Grattan. that in three days we will remove the bandages from your husbands eyes and he will see" Thank you" stammered Lorraine Marr, as the good doctor paused ex- pectantly, and, with a look of disap- pointment, dropped her little cold hand. | T hope you will not think that am not glad nor that I am not grate- | full for your skill and care, Doctor, she faltered, but II"
 'Humph! I don't think anything. By the holy fleece, but you are all a puzzle-allr' he said as he went away. Ten years ago she had come to her | beautiful home. The fragrance of the roses that decked the room then seemed to finger yet in the air around | her.
 My queen of roses," williston Marr had said. "my rose of the universe, there is none other so beautiful" How glad of her beauty she had been | for his sake Trivial as it had always | seemed. it was glorifled to her because | he loved 1t. Three years later blind | ness gloomed over him. There came a day when he took her into his arms and gazed long into her face. | see summer Ol Boiu hdhs " sSS | like the deep arch of heaven, lilies and roses that will bloom and winter | for other eyes to look upon. lips that are like the red carnation while 1t yet folds its happy secret in the crimson glory of its glowing heart. As look the shadows deepen. Tomorrow per | haps even that faint radiance may be gone. Do not think my heart will cease to be glad in the loveliness that rnar Two years of darkness for him and of watching for her and then there came a time when she went down all most to the gates of death. When she came back to life she laughed at the care with which they had taken all the mirrors from the room. "It was only for his sake that | 1t does not matter. When life has such love what can it lack?" My light has come back" he said | q can see you just as I saw you be- fore the night fell, all rose and gold and snow."
 Was she not the same? She was so | to his heart and what mattered it else? Not that he would love her less He ] had loved her for the soul that Was in her and his love would never fail. but he would pity her ,too-he who had l always been so proud of her. 'Tn three days" he said, they tell me shall see you"
 | An, we'll! They should be to him | three such days that the light of them should gild all the coming years for him. Now, the last of the three was gone.
 | All the world was an iron wall clos | ing in upon her She went into the 1 lighted street and walked with the human tide that surged onward, yet | so far from 1t that she never saw nor heard it. She seemed to have spent aeons of time travelling infinite dis tances when she was conscious of a
 brilliant flash eveloping her resist | less force bearing down upon her,
 cry from many voices that filled the
 world with thunder-a crash-dark- ness.
 She opened her eyes and looked at a woman who sat beside the cot on
 which she lay.
 How long have I been herer
 "Only a little while," said the wo- man in a gentle voice, as one might talk to an over-curious child. Then
 she went out and young face took her place at the bedside. Lorraine leaned forward as the door closed and again asked with eager insistence:
 How long have been hereT | Seven months, answer Ine BlrL lIl- puIsively, taken by surprise at the im- petuous manner.
 For seven months she had been dead l to the world. How far had 1t gone on without her? So far that 1t had no more any place for her?
 wililston Marr came back to the light of day. but the sunshine of his heart had gone out. When the bugle call to war rang through the land he | was the first to respond, moved less lby patriotism than by restless loneli- Eness. Many a man with all earth's joys to live for went down in the fires of battle but he. with no hope but to find the shortest path out of life, came | through without a wound.
 The old home held too sad associa-
 tions for him to return to 1t, and after the war was over he wandered through | many countries, but never could be lose the voice that called to him out of the past.
 | He returned to his native country, and on one 30th of May stopped at a hillside station where his train would l wait for a freight wreck just ahead to be cleared away. The early May morn- ing was just rising above eastern hills when williston Marr left the train to rest himself by a walk along the hill- side Near the station was rail- way lunch room. and he went In and ordered a cup of coffee and sand wich after the fashion of the experience ed traveller. He had fancy that his