Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1905-08-05
Sir Hilary S Heiress.

True, she had lived for a time in one
or two of the big colonial towns, and
travelled saloon" on a first-class steamer:
but in her widest dreams of luxury and
wealth, she had never pictured such a
place as Rochester manor, and she never
could quite forget her first sensations of
awe and admiration as she entered the
grand old place, and saw the funkeys
i'll their new hveries, the dazzling array
of silver and flowers on the dinner table,
or her chagrin at her own awkwardness
and many mistakes, and the utter ease
of the other three people seated at the
table
She looked back now on her former
ignorance with anger. She had sur
mounted it all, she thought, and for the
future could behave as to the manner
born; but first impressions are often the
most lasting, and to eternity no place
could ever impress her mind as the manor
house had done, and she never swerved
from her first determination to marry its
owner, and rule as mistress there.
Her natural shrewdness soon taught
her that Violet cared deeply for Sir
Halco. Her own vanity prevented her
from seeing that Sir Halco cared to the
full as much for Violet; and by hun
dred unjustifable arts did Mrs. Rochester
feed that vanity, turn and twist and
distort her sons actions and words to
quite different meaning he had meant
them to bear. She had set her whole
heart on Haleo marrying his uncle's
heiress, and she closed her eyes to every
other consideration, bending all her eff
forts to bring the affair to the conclusion
desired by herself.
One can for a mother do much when
her ambitions are all for her children.
but Mrs. Rochester overstepped the
rubicon between right and wrong; her
vision became absolutely distorted, and
she verged in speech perilously near ly-
ing, false witness, and perjury.
As Sir Halco was laggard in wooing,
she conducted his suit for him, and said
| and did so many things in his name that
it was hardly surprising that, coupled
with her own excessive vanity, Alice
Smith greedily swallowed everything, and
believed the young baronet was head over
heels in love with her.
Yet, although she knew quite well that
she had stolen Violet's fortune and lover
instead of conjunction, she only felt a
wild jealousy and mreasoning hate to-
wards the girl who had treated her so
well, and whom she had supplanted.
Although she refused to admit even to
herself Niolet's superiority, it made it
self felt, and embittered her terribly
there was an inward ranking, an irrita-
Nlity, constant desire for fattery
compliments, as if to stihe that faint
inward feeling which called up such a
torrent of jealous hate in her breast
When Alice Smith had been three
months in her new home, however, there
was a marvellous improvement in her
manner and appearance, which went a
long way to prove the truth of the as
sertion that dress makes the man" Tor
woman) as the case might be.
Aided by the best of milliners, Mrs.
Rochester and Violet's good taste in APP
parel, and sl1illful ladies' maid to ar
range her hair in the latest fashion
toned down by the sable hue of her gar
ments, and carefully instructed in those
points in which she was deficient, Alice
Smith could have passed in most places
as very superior person to the one OF
three months back, especially if she did
not attempt to talk or "show off" too
profusely, as she did when pleased, vexed
or excited.
| Violet had done even more than she had
promised. Sustained by her love for, and
gratitude to the dead Sir Hilary, she had
set herself steadily to the task of i'm
| proving his heiress in those things in
which she was lacking.
Many weary hours did she spend in
| teaching Alice Smith how to enter and
leave room or carriage, how to behave
when paying calls or receiving visitors
| the correct way to walk. waltz, and
speak, details the other greedily absorbed
without troubling to utter that or feel
grateful.
But violet was not working for future
| favoTs so much as past blessings there
fore did not think anything about it.
She had an instinct in such things, and
had realized from the first moment the
heiress walked into the manor house in
| gaudy array, instead of the mourning
garb which gratitude and respect for her
dead benefactor's memory ought to have
made her don, that the girl was deficient
in the essential point of delicacy and re-
fnement; but she only redoubled her eff
| forte on that account.
! Too soon did she realize that Alice
SmILn was not only to have the wealth
that everyone concluded was to have
been hers, but that she had also taken
| her lover.
That is to say, that Sir Halco held
sternly aloof from both girls, a moody
silent man, instead of the ardent sutton
Of the past, and Mrs. Rochester made nc
secret of his infatuation for the new
conner or that a little later on he would
declare himself as a candidate for the
hciress' hand in marriage.
Really. you know, my dear Violet, .
| the anxious. worldly matron would say
my poor boy fell in love with Alice at
first sight, and who could be surprised (
The dear girl is perfect child of nature
so innocent, so natural. so transparent
and SO unlike anything he had ever met
| before! That's the charm these colonials