Democratic Press, Volume 1, Number 7, Decatur, Adams County, 29 November 1894 — Page 8

DASHED HOPES. In the dim corners of Lady Arlington's big drawing-room in Grosvenor place rose-sbaded lamps were casting a tender glow, but near the three tall windows and in the center of the room there was still sufficient daylight to illuminate the facesand frocks of the guests who were assembled for dinner Laay Arlington, clad in shimmering white satin and wonderful pink pearls, flitted like a spirit from group to group: now greeting a fresh arrival, now pairing off her friends. “Lady Susan, Lord Marrable will take you down. He’s awfully dull, 1 know, but Bertie Fancourt is your other side. Sir Charles, you're destined to the tender mercies of Dolly Lansdown. Take care of yourself; she's a dreadful little flirt, and boasts of her victims. Ah! Olivia, I'm delighted to see you. Col. Egerton, take care of my friend, Mrs. Abinger, for a few moments till her cavalier turns up. What a nuisance your sex is, colonel. Here we are, twenty-three hungry souls, all waiting for one tiresome man. Olivia, my dear, if in five minutes he does not turn up I'm afraid you’ll have to go downstairs alone.” And with a gay little laugh Lady Arlington turned away. Mrs. Abinger smiled after her retreating figure, and Col. Egerton. catching sight of her slightly-curled mouth, thought she had the sweetest lips he had ever seen, and so thinking, he looked the closer He saw a slender woman, with a shapely head set upon a round, white throat. The low-cut bodice of her plain black gown clasped a slight j waist and made a fitting framework I for her dimpled shoulders. Her big I black fan seemed all too heavy for her tiny wrists and small pink-tipped fin- I gers. In the fast-fading light he could ' scarcely distinguish her features, but ' he noticed that her hair was soft and fair, and that her eyes were large and | just a little sad. The gallant colonel was still won- , dering what kind of a voice so charming a woman could have, when the door was flung wide and a tall man | strode into the room. Lady Arlington heaved an audible sigh of relief, waved rather than spoke an introduction between Mrs. Abinger and the newcomer, and then, like a multicolored snake, her guests rustled down the w ide white staircase to dinner. There was a momentary dragging of silken trains under chairs and a general settling down before the last arrival turned to scan the woman at his side, whom in the swift transit from the drawing-room to the dining-room he had only vaguely concluded was slight, and pretty, and fair-haired. “Olivia! You?” His tone of astonishment was too lond for good breeding, but the chat about the table was lively, and no one heard his voice save, indeed, Mrs. Abinger. “Yes, it is I. I knew you the moment you entered, though the room was almost dark.” “And yet we’ve not met for so many years," he said; then, with the gallant after-thought of a man of the world, he added: "Not that you book one day older than when —” She finished the sentence for him: “We parted.” There was a sigh in her voice and a touch of pure sentiment in her sad eyes as she spoke, and recalled, as women love to do, the agony of that hour, fifteen years .go, which had torn her from Angus Ferrers’ arms. hhe had been so young then —little more than a child—but her whole soul had been given to her boyish lover, and the parental edict which had sent Angus to India and herself to a wretched marriage had nearly broken her heart But the dream of the past was dispelled by him who had recalled it. “And you married?" he said. "Yes; I was obliged. Mr. Abinger was rich in those days, and he bought me.” “In those days! Is he not so now?” “He died two years ago, a pauper." Mrs. Abinger spoke quietly. She had lived so long with the tragedy of ! existence that it had lost its most ■ poignant thrills, and had degenerated into a gray monotony of misery. No so Sir Angus Ferrers. A look of unutterable pity crept into his eyes, a note of Intense sympathy into his voice. “And you are—” “A widow, and a pauper, too.” She made a little gesture with her small, white hands; a gesture that invited inspection of her poor gown, of her lack of jewels—and that told i more plainly than could a thousand words of genteel poverty and want “Mv poor Olivia," he said, and as she glanced at him she saw tears on his eye-lashes. Lady Arlington grumbled next day to her husband of Mrs. Abinger’s dullness and Sir Angus Ferrers’ silence. But that long dinner was, in truth, nothing but a dream to the man and woman who had parted with such passionate tears fifteen years ago. and had met once again so unexpectedly. Yet, though both dreamed, their visions were so different He, rich, titled, still in the prime of manhood, was absorbed in the dead past If he had been firm, if he had married Olivia, how much unhappiness he might have saved her, how much peace it would have brought to himself. And Olivia dreamed only of a future with the man whose image had been ever in her heart, of a time of love-and joy, and freedom from sordid money troubles, and shabby frocks and semigenteel lodgings. And so, except when now and then they exchanged some conventional phrase, there was silence between the two who had so much to say After dinner it seemed perfectly natural to Olivia Abinger that Sir Angus Ferrers should seek her, and, indeed. she had chosen a quiet corner l>ehi- • —c of the tell, rose-shaded for r **'”

It was she who talked the most telling him of her great trials and disappointments, dwelling on them with the insistence of one who is drifting towards happier things. He sat and listened, and as he listened looked; and as he looked was conscious of a ▼ague thankfulness that he, still a young man, was bound by no chain to the woman who sat before him. He tried not to see the lines about her large, dark eyes, the dragged hardness that marred the sweetness of her month. He knew instinctively that her heart and her love were as fresh as the first day they were given to him, but for the life of him he could not repress a guilty thankfulness that she was—only an old friend. By and by he rose to go, but held her hand long in taking leave. “Now that we have met again, Olivia, we must not lose sight of one another. When may I come and see you?” She looked into his eyes and a happy smile curved the corners of her lips. “Whenever you please, Angus. Will you come to-morrow?” And he bowed low and left her behind the glowing lamp, her heart beating high in her bosom with the surety that to-morrow he would speak and ask her to be his wife. Lady Arlington’s voice roused her. “Olivia, come out of your hidingplace at once. I want you to ccrtne to Hurlingbam next Saturday. Will you?” Olivia smiled a “yes,” thinking what would any plans matter now After to-morrow her life would be Angus’ to do with as he would. Most likely he would want her to go to some quiet river place, w here they could be alone. In happy, dreamful silence she drifted across the great drawing-room toward the group gathered about Lady Arlington, who was chatting volubly to half a dozen women at once. “What did youthink of Mira Bert- • rani’s hair? She changes the color I every month, 1 declare. Lady Susan was quite angry about it- but then, you know, she thinks it quite indecent to touch up at all. I was so awfully vexed, by the wav, that Laxly Ferrers i couldn’t come. She’s quite pretty, and her gowns—all fresh, of course, for I she’s only a bride—are so very smart.” “Ladj’ Ferrers! Is Sir Angus mar- | ried?” Olivia Abinger did not know whether she or another asked the question. She only waited for the answer. “Oh, yes; six weeks ago. She’s such a dear little thing, and so nice. Her father’s place matches with his own in Scotland.” Olivia Abinger did not cry out or faint, though the shattering of her dream and the breaking of her heart were beyond all mortal agony. She said: “Good night,” and drove in a frowsy four-wheeler to her shabby lodgings. Still silent, still enduring, she went upstairs to her little sitting-room; but when she had lit the gas it flared upon a face marked by the anguish of a life time. She stood by the table, her hands hanging at her sides, her eyes, which could not weep, staring before her. “Married! rich! happy! While I, who have hoped and longed and loved, am—” She flung her white arras above her head, and a great cry rent her throat—a cry of all a w oman's pent-up passion, of all a heart’s bitter disappointment. “It is too much,” she cried aloud to the shabby walls and cheap furniture; “I cannot bear it To-night 1 have dreamed of other things, I cannot go back to the old ways. My heart is dead within me—dead.” She paused; a gray shadow stole over her drawn face, a somber fire burned in her eyes. For a moment she disappeared into her bedroom, then returned to where the gas flared. She looked about her and, with the careful method of a poor woman, picked up her cloak from the floor and folded it away on a chair. Then she lowered the gas to the blue and flung open the window. “I want my soul to be free to go to him if it can,” she murmured, leaning out over the street. “This will unloose my bonds —and bring me peace and rest, and, perhaps, a little sigh of regret from him.” With cold white fingers, that yet did not tremble at their task, she drew the stopper from a tiny phial she held in her hand. A thick, sweet odor as of almond flowers floated through the room. It dominated the faint perfume that breathed from Olivia's gown and fair hair, and even tainted with its insidious savor the outer air. With dilated nostrils she caught the subtle scent and smiled a little. “Peace —and regret—and remembrance,” she sighed, then raising her hand to her lips, with one movement of her slender throat she swallowed the few drops of liquid contained in the small blue bottle. Her hand dropped heavily on the windowsill and her fingers relaxed. The tinkle of fallen glass rose fruiii the pavement below. bhe fell upon her knees before the open w indow and raised her ashen face to the star-lit heavens. Her fingers twitched in agony above her bursting heart: her pale lips struggled to cry but once to the man who, for the second time, had plunged her into the darkness of despair. But only a whisper came from her burning throat and poor, twisted mouth. “Angus—my love—pray for me—remember me sometime.” Her head fell forward on the windowsill. They found her dead at dawn. Most people said she couldn't bear poverty. But one man sometimes wonders if there was not another reason for her suicide.—Pick-Me-Up. —As are families, so is society. If well ordered, well instructed and well governed, they are the springs from which go forth the streams of national • greatness and prosperity—of civil or- ’ der and public happiness.—Thayer. —During the middle ages the belief i was common that insanity was a form ■ of demoniacal possession, and many cruelties were practiced on the deI men ted for the purpose of expelling thp demons.

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Central : Grocery. — Lemon Cling Peaches 25c can. Peninsulars 15c per pound. Citron 25c per pound. Boiled Cider 40c per gallon. Seedless Raisins. Kippert Herring, 20c. per box. Sardines. 5, 10, 15c. per box. Salmon, 15, 18, 22c. per box. Boneless Herring, 15c. per box. Putted Ham, 15c. per can. Horn Harbor Oysters, 15c. can. Spanish Olives, 25c. per bot. Shredded Pine Apple, 50c. per quart jar. Sliced Pine Apple, 50c. per quart jar. Silver Leaf Maple Syrup. Buckwheat Flour.

DDSOVAK !t BMIMP. Money to Loan. I have money to loan onthe Loan Association plan. No fees to be paid by borrowers. Can furnish money on a few days notice. Buy a home and stop paying rent. Low rate of interest. Office over Donovan & Bremer, camp. Central Grocery, Decatur. Ind. PAUL HOOPER You can fool some of the people all the time, you can fool all of the people some of the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time with humbug insurance when they can get first class insurance just as cheap. Go to Edward Coffee and be insured in such companies as the Prussian National, and you will make no mistake, ts Blank receipt books for sale at this office.

Fine celery and Bermuda onions at Coffee Bros. Try Case’s Best. The best 5 cent cigar made. 6-ts Case's drug store for the finest line of perfumes. 6-ts i Fresh bread and cakes always on hand at Coffee Bros. The finest line of drug sundries in Decatur will be found at Case's drug store. A warm meal, lunch, coffee or anything in the eating line always to be found at Coffee • Bros, Drop in and see thgm. Prescriptions carefully compounded either day or night, by Theo. Gerke, at Case’s drug store. 6-ts Crushed Oyster Shells for Poultry. Will make your hens lay in winter. Ensures a healthy and profitable poultry yard. For sale by J. D. Hale. Streit’s Bargain Store is the place to buy your Holi day Goods. The cheapest place in Decatur. ts For Notions, Small Hardware, Tinware and Holiday Goods, call on the Bargain Store next door to Postoffice. For Sale. A good saw mill and engine. Consists of a new complete saw mill, with Knight’s patent dogs, two saws large and small, right or left feed lever, one buzz saw. Engine of Gaar Scott pattern with both sawyer’s valve and governors, force and injector pumps, quick stroke movement. The above outfit will pay for itself in a few months work, as I have done so repeatedly. Now is a chance for some energetic man to make money, also I hold in reserve two good locations for mill which I will give with the sale. Reasons for selling are that a change of business necessitates suchpr J ce $650. W. E. FULK. Surveyor Elect. Decatur, Ind.

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