Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1908-06-23
CHAPTER XVII.

The old castle of Donoyle grows out
of wooded precipice, the green
! beauty of which is reflected, a hum
dred feet deep, in the fairest river of
the south of Ireland. The persistent
ivy has scaled the ramparts which
Cromwell could not take, and con-
spired with lichen to hide the ineffec-
tive breaches made by his cannon. A
castle owing no debt of beauty to the
skill of modern architects, but planned
and built by soldier race as their
city of refuge, it had watched the tide
of feudal wars storm by, and remain
ed uncovered by the tides of English
conquest. Turning greyer with every
century, where the Ivy could not
reach, 1t had grown to look like a
mass of boulders in world of woods.
! In a room of this castle, which over.
| looked the river, Lady Donoyle and
one morning, about year from the
call
Paddy, the post, is late again to-
day." observed Lady Donoyle.
eyes" said Kitty "And I wonder
will his excuse be sitting up with the
ailing pig, or meeting the white lady
in Drumrooe Wood? Poor old dear!
He ought to think of something new. "
Talking about the post, Kitty, do
you know that Dumbdale, M. p, has
used it very much of late, in an eff
fort to discover when you are going
to marry him? Your attitude of opti-
mistic evasion seems to pail on him,
Nothing from Mr.. Vandraken ?"
Nothing but the wonderful white
lilies, with the red rose in the middle.
I wish knew what it meant" unused
Lady Kitty, wistfully.
at is very poetical, dear. AS the
French general remarked, apropos of
the charge Of Balaclava, 1T is grand,
but 1t is not war OF course, the
flowers come in very handy in London,
and keep down the florists bills, but
really, in the country, where flowers
are so plentiful, they become monoton-
Gus. think McCracken resents them
as an imputation on his lighthouses,
and cannot afford to lose McCracken.
should never be able to replace him
at the price. We are getting harder
i up all the time. know where money
comes from, but can't think where 1t
goes to. Yes, Kitty, much as I dis
| like the idea Of Mr. Dumbdale as a
son-in-law, l am afraid you will have
to put up with him as a husband.
All! Here comes Richardson with the
post"
She broke off, to Kitty's relief, as
the butler entered with the salver
heaped up with letters and papers.
.The inevitable Times" said Lady
Kitty. "It has got dull since the
Japanese war and the book war stop,
ped"
"Only want Of ammunition, Kitty
The book war may be amusing again
yet
II wish it would; but, thank good.
ness!" confessed Kitty, II can always
get my maid, to smuggle up the Daily
Tale from the housekeeper's room"
"Ah!" said Lady Donoyle, as she
opened and glanced carelessly through
the letters. Fiction for fiction; and
that accounts for the difficulty my
maid has his in getting hold of it. I'm
afraid it's ha'porth of picturesquely
embroidered detail appeals to me
more than the 'thrippence' worth OF
plain facts in it's respectable rival
Why!-what's this? Why, Kitty! This
is most extraordinary! Lady Donoyle
rose up from behind the coffee-pot in
her excitement, holding in her hand g
Ilegal-looking letter. The cynical calm
had forsaken her pale blue eyes. "My
dear, it's like something out of g
three-volume novel;"
Whatever it is, mamma" Kitty had
never seen her mother so conquered
by human emotion before.
(To ho copfiDu