The news=record. [volume] (Enterprise, Wallowa County, Oregon) 1907-1910, 1909-10-27

were not always kind to you. were
they? shouldn't wonder IL they beat
you sometimes! But you will never be
beaten any more. You shall Lave a
nice little pony, and a cart, and flow
ers, and pretty clothes, and everything
that little girls like. l don't know
what they are. but whatever they are
you shall have them. So don't cry any
more! What pretty name Pepeeta
IL! II sounds like music when l say
IT, l have got the toughest name in
the world myself. It's a regular jaw
breaker-Doctor Paracelsus Aescula-
plus! What do you think of that. Pc
peeta! But then you r reed not call me
oy the whole of l.! You can Just call
me Doctor. for short. Now. look at me
Just once, and give me a pretty smile
Let me see those big black eyes! No?
You don't want. to? Well, that's all
right. l won't bother you. But want
you to know that l love you, and that
you are never going to have any more
trouble as long as you live"
Ihese were the kindest words the
child had ever had spoken to her. or at
least the kindest she could remember.
They fell on her ears like music and
awakened gratitude and love in her
heart. She ceased to sigh, and before
the ride to town was ended had be-
gun to feel vague sense of happi-
ness.
The next Few years were full of
strange adventures for these singular
companions The quack had discov-
cred certain clues to the past history
OF the child whom he had thus adopt
ed. and was firmly persuaded that she
belonged to a noble family. He had
made all his plans to take her to Spain
and establish her identity in the hope
or securing great reward But Just
as he was about to execute this
scheme, he was seized by a disease
which prostrated him for many
months, and threw him into a nervous
condition in which he contracted the
habit of stammering. On his recovery
from his long sickness he found HIM
self stripped of everything he had ac-
cumulated; but his shrewdness and in
domitable will remained. and he soon
began to rebuild his shattered fortune.
During all these ups and WINS, Pc
peeta was his inseparable and devoted
companion. The admiration which her
childish beauty excited in his heart
had deepened into affection and finally
into love. When she reached the age
OF l6 or II years. he proposed to her
the Idea of marriage. She knew moth
ing Of her own heart, and little about
life, but had been accustomed to Yield
implicit obedience to hi will. She con-
sented and the ceremony was perform
ed by Justice of the Peace In the
city of Cincinnati, year or so before
their appearance In tie Quaker village.
An experience so abnormal would have
perverted, II not destroyed her nature,
had 1t not contained the germs of
beauty and virtue implanted at her
birth. They were still dormant but
not dead; they only awaited the sun
and rain of love to quicken them INTO
life
The quack had coarsened with the
passing years, but Pepeeta. withdraw
ing into the sanctuary Of her soul, liv-
Ing a life of vagnue dreams and half
conscious aspirations after something,
she know not what, had grown even
more gentle and submissive. AS she
did not yet comprehend life, she did
not protest against its injustice or its
incongruity. The vulgar people among
whom she lived. the vulgar scenes she
saw, passed across the mirror of her
soul without leaving permanent i'm
preston. She performed the coarse
duties Of her life in perfrnctory
manner. 1t was her body and not her
soul. her will and not her heart which
were concerned with them. What that
soul and that heart really were re-
mained to be seen.
Ito be contlnued.)