River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1913-03-27

lsuly VI I'LL NO WOnQeT A0u 1ulROA
Visible aloft, in an artless German
toilet OF ease and without her teeth,
the countess (who was gazing stock,
for the same reason), and Augustine,
her maid, the three Russians on the
second floor, and the three Americans
on the third, filled the windows with
polyglot CONSERVATION! The conse-
quence of it all was that when the
Count Won Butler was formally pre-
sented to Miss Wing that evening. she
blushed. She was too pale and list
less to be pretty, but when she blushed
she was enchanting Remembering
the meringue, she smiled and ventured
an upward glance; and, for the first
time In her life. met the admiration IN
the eyes or man. At this time Mar
garet was thirty years old and had
never been asked in marriage. she
had spent most Of the thirty years IN
boarding-school, as pupil or as
teacher; and she had brought from
her clustered life single vivid feel
ing, a passionate friendship which
death had ended. The sapphire ring
was her poor friends last token.
To be thirty and never to have been
sought like other girls, leaves a chill
in the heart. 1t may be lonely never
to have loved, but it is bleak never to
have been loved. Margaret remem-
bered her delicate, girlish dreams with
recoil Of humiliation; they seemed
to her almost immodest. She thought
she was. too old to wear hats, and
wondered whether she ought not to
discard the pinks and light blues
which poor ELY had liked on her. for
more sedate colors But she wore
pink after she met Max Butler. Yet
he never saw her save in the pres
ence of others. He was full of little,
graceful attentions, but he showed the
same attentions to the portly clergy
mans widow and the meritorious but
cross-eyed teacher of fifty, who formed
Miss Wings party" it was only his
eyes, his eyes always following her,
approvfngly, delighting, admiring,
pleading, speaking to her as they
spoke to no other woman. She told
herself that it was just the pleasant,
foreign way; and she wrote to her
friends in America. "The German Of
ficers have very agreeable, deferential
manners; ! think they are much more
gentle and polite and have a higher
respect for women than the French or
italians" And he said no word, even
of friendship, until that afternoon at
the Heidelberger Schloss.
He came upon her almost imme-
diately, scrambling up the bank at a
rate which had worked woe to his uni
form. He was torn, he was scratched,
he was stained with mud and grass;
and he was beaming with delight. 81
have seen you from below" he ex-
claimed in his careful English, so /
came up. Will you excuse?" Then
his mood changed, perceiving her
plight, and he insisted on tearing his
handkerchief into strips to bind her
ankle. 1t seemed absurd to refuse his
aid, which he offered quite simply;
but his hands trembled a little over
the knots. 1T will be most easy, l
think" said he, that you should let
me assist you a small way, to the res
tauracion; so l can get the carriage,
and you can have some ice cream.
Again, to-day, is 1t burned"
She had laughed and said that she
never had heard of burned ice cream
He laughed, too, and explained that
it was burned as a custard, and some
how under cover of this she let him
put her hand on his shoulder and his
arm about her waist. She was CRATE
full to him for the matter-of-fact man
ner in which he did it all, saying,
You will have to be my comrade that
has been wounded, and [ will help
him off the field; so I did, once, with
my colonel; it is better than to wait
until could bring help" In this fash
ion they walked for some twenty min
utes
He told her OF his country and his
home; and how he loved the hills
that his fathers had always owned,
and the rugged simple, faithful peo-
pie; he told her of the plans of his
father and himself for them; he told
her of his father, who had the best
heart in the world. but was credited
with fierce temper simply because
his voice was lOud and his mother,
who was so gentle that every one
loved her; and his handsome sister,
and his brother, who was diplomat
and far cleverer than he; and his lit
tie brother who died and would have
no one carry him in his pain but Max
("Ah. he was the most clever and the
most beautiful of US all!"), and Max,
his little nephew, who looked like the
dead boy. II hope you will see my
home and them ALL he said; "tomor-
row, shall see them, then, the same
day, shall be back herewith you"
And then, by degrees, she won him
to talk of his profession, of his hopes,
his ambitions, his ideals; of all those
intimate and cherished things which
lie at the bottom of the soul and only
rise for a friends eyes. 1t seemed to
her that she could read his character
in the hints given by his words, as
one would fill an outline sketch with
perspective and details. There was
cert ainly fascination in this revela-
ton; candor, after all, was virtue,
as we'll as reticence. Perhaps her
new friend was a little medieval, but
he was as refined as # he had been
all modern.
| BY now they were rafting through
the modern town of Heidelberg, the
plain walls of which looked bare after