The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1922-12-12


 over a field of battle and calculates the chances of his outnum bered army. His eyes fell to the slender feet in | the shining bronze slippers, with the ant green.
 His heart leaped. His eyes raised and met the freck1es. He clenched his hand.
 If it wasn't for them freckles-''
 Yes ?''
 T could see your face.'' ] Crimson went up her throat with delicate tints, blending the clear | the round neck. He jumped to his feet; he pointed commanding arm. That hairl''
 ] q know it's-''
 T don't care WI at you knew. Un- tie that knot!''
 She obeyed. A red gold flood rip pied suddenly almost to her knees. Carrigan blinked. | Sit down.
 She dropped to a chair, and Carri- gan commenced to work. When a a steer to jerking out six-gun with the speed of light, he acquires a marvellous dexterity with his hands, Carrigan could almost think with his fingers. They seemed, in fact to have a separate intelligence.
 He gathered up in the si1ken mass. | The soft touch thrilled him as if every one of the delicate threads carried
 
 | marvellous that such a shining torrent could have been reduced the moment 1 before to that competed, bright red knot.
 | Carrigan closed his eyes and sum- moned up a vision of hair as he had 1 seen 1t dressed, not on the heads of any of the mountain-desert be11es, but in magazines pictures. l With that vision before bt1n he com menced to work, rapidly, surely. It seemed as if the hair. glad to escape from the bondage of that hard knot, | fell of it's own accord into graceful. waving lines. It curved low across the broad forehead; it gathered at the nape of the neck in a soft knot in the Grecian mode. ''Now!" said Carrfgan
 She rose and faced him.
 Whats happened?" she cried, for his lower jaw had fallen. He swallowed twice before he could answer. I'm beginning to see your face!"
 For the face. after ali, is like any picture. The hair is the frame, and an ugly frame will spoil the most lovely painting. The eye does not stop at a boundary. It includes 1t.
 tOnce more!" said Carrigan, and seized the vanishing cream.
 As he worked now he felt like the artist who draws the human face from the block of mab1e He felt as Michael Angelo when the grim old Florentine said: 'I do not create: I take off the outer layers of the stone and free the form which is hidden within" Or perhaps he was more like Pygmalion and the 1nevitap.e statute when the artist saw the first hues of life faintly flushing in the cold marble.
 When he stepped back and looked at her. she seemed strangely aloor. She had draawn away a thousand miles and thousand years. He dis covered the most ancient of truths IUn is herself upon which all men must look from the outside. She escapes from experience. It cannot stain her. She escapes from herself. Her beauty is greater than her soul.
 "It's done," said Carr1gan sadly
 Isn't it any use?" she queried.
 He thought of Maurie and hated the handsome face which rose in his m ern ory.
 You look sick" said Jac. ..what.s the matter? Is it all in my face? Let me take slant at the landscape after the snow has fa11en.''
 She ran to the cracked glass She was a tomboy when she whtrIed to a stop in front of it. He watched her eyes widen; saw her straighten slightly, wonderfully. She was inches taller when she turned; she was years older.
 Are you ready, Mir. Carr1gan?"
 She moved to him with a subtle rust1ing like the fall of a mistfng rain on orchard blossoms. He could not answer for moment. He had seen a miracle.
 ''Yes, Miss During" he said at last.
 The light which came somewhere from the depths to shine in her eyes altered swiftly to "a sparkle which he could understand.
 She ran to him and caught both his hands.
 ''Carrigan," said Jac. you're a trumpl"
 And you" said he, "are the ace of the suit. Let's go!'
 'One thing drst,'' she said and ran into another room.
 She came back almost at once with a chain of amber beads about her throat-a loop of golden fire, tremb- ling and changing with every breath | she drew. She slipped the orchid | colored scarf over her shoulders It 1 was like mist tinged by the dainty | light of dawn Three times the ricn | color was repeated; first in the req | gold glory Of her hair, then in the | flash of fire that Iooped her throat | and last it sp1ashed across the bronze ! slippers. But with the orchid colored 1 scarf the charm was complete, the | spell was cast.
 How are we to go?" she asked as they stood beside his horse.
 He looked On her with some doubt | The dim light caught at the amber beads.
 Perhaps we'll have to ride dou- ble' he ventured.
 Her laughter treasured him. She 1 caught the pommel of the saddle as if to vault up. man-fashion. Then 1 she rem embered, with a nlurmur or dismay
 He caught her beneath the arms and lifted her lightly to the saddle, then sprang up behind. The horse started at Q slow trot.
 "Carri rigan ?"
 f'Well?'
 Harry is at the dance. If he should recognize me?''
 ''He won't"
 She chuckled. There was a brood ing mischief in the tone that set him tingling.
 Are you sure?"
 Did the people recognize Cinder- ella at the ball?"
 And if there should be trouble