Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 70, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 March 1910 — The Fateful Miss Douglas [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Fateful Miss Douglas

Mrs. Ransom surveyed her tall brother meditatively, while he returned the scrutiny with smiling cheerfulness. John MacPherson was enjoying to the utmost the little visit to his sister, whom he had not seen since her marriage a couple of years previous, so he did not in the least understand why she should sigh and remark seriously: “It’s too bad; yes. It is!” “What?” he asked, lazily.

“Why, that you got here just the day after Isabel Douglas left town,” responded pretty little Mrs. Ransom. “She’s the dearest girl! She’s—” “Lives in Kentucky, beautiful as a dream, glorious brown eyes, most charming disposition on earth, is— ’’ “Where’d you meet her?” broke in Mrs. Ransom, breathlessly. “I never had the pleasure,” laughed her. brother “Only I had to sit one whole evening during my visit in Toledo and hear my hostess recount the charms of this most evasive Isabel. She had left there just the week before my arrival. I seem to cast a blighting shadow over her enjoyment; at any rate, she runs at my approach.” • a a * * But if he had not seen her the fame of Miss Isabel Douglas was destined to haunt his ears. During his visit at his sister’s he heard Miss Douglas’ name so frequently on the lips of visitors that he grew half irritated. It was impossible that any girl could be such a paragon—and if she was he had no desire to know her. When he reached Chicago on his homeward way he stopped to transact some business. Phillips, his lawyer, was most cordial in pressing his New York client to come out to his house and MacPherson was half induced to accept. His frame of mind experienced an instantaneous change, however, when Phillips added: “We’ve a visitor coming to-morrow you'd like to meet, I know—Miss Isabel Douglas of Kentucky. She—" “Sorry,” said Mr. MacPherson, decidedly, “but I can’t wait over a day on any account, my dear man.” Even in New York he was not left in peace. One of the newspapers printed a page of pictures and gossip about beautiful women and, idly glancing it over, the name of Douglas -caught his eye. He groaned as he looked closer—yes, the first name was Isabel. Then he searched for the picture of her and stared at it half Indignantly. It was a very lovely face, more than that, it was high-bred and thoughtful, u well as perfect in line and form.

In a few weeks she had passed out of his mind entirely. But John MacPherson was not to slip out of the clutches of determined fate in this easy fashion. With no warning whatever, no premonitions of the trap before him, he climbed the steps of a Fifth avenue house one night to fulfill a dinner engagement. His hostess was a charming woman, and her dinner was famous. He was in a very pleasant frame of mind. As he opened the little envelope containing the name of his dinner partner he exclaimed to sharply that the welltrained footman could not forbear a glance of astonishment. On the .card was the name of Isabel Douglas. MacPherson, instantly in revolt, meditated flight for an instant, then realized how impossible that was and that there was nothing to do but go downstairs and meet her. At any rate, she should not add him to the list of victims report said strewed her path. He entered the big drawing room and greeted his hostess.’ “I’ve favored you to-night,” that lady said, smiling. “I’ve given you the prettiest and nicest girl here to take out to dinner. Do you know Miss Douglas of Kentucky?” “I do not,” said the helpless John MacPherson, crisply, and mentally set his teeth. In two minutes it was all over and he was properly introduced to her. Just what he had expected Miss Douglas to do was hard to say—he

had braced himself for resistance. But to his bewilderment, like a dash of cool water in his face, he realized there was absolutely nothing to resist. Miss Douglas, far lovelier than her picture, had given him one rare, cordial smile which revealed the secret of her potCer; for it was a smile speaking a sympathetic interest in the individual addressed, and then had not paid very much more attention to him, being interested in the conversation of a returned arctic explorer. ' 1 “1 MacPherson studied her at his leisure and as the moments passed found himself grasping wildly at all his ingrained prejudices against her. He had wits enough to reflect in a panicstricken way that if the mere sight of her was so charming, acquaintance with her might work marvelous changes in a man’s feelings. When they passed out to the dining room MacPherson found himself halting for something to say, a new exercise for him. The girl herself broke the ice by remarking that she thought she knew his sister—was not Nan Ransom out West that relative? Sh§ had mentioned her brother so often. "She certainly got In her gpeclal

brand of hypnotic work on me, all right,” he told his reflection grimly that night as he took off his cravat before the mirror. “But, then, she’s an exception!” John MacPherson was a man who went out after what he wanted when he got his mind made up. He never really made up his mind about Isabel Douglas, however—that is, deliberately. He did not have time. It was a fatal attack from the very first sight of her. And when he asked her to marry him, after she had been in New York two weeks only, and she very properly protested his haste, it plunged him into despair so deep that he made life unbearable for his servants. But Miss Douglas knew her own heart, too, after several years of experience in refusing numerous suitors, and she did not keep the man she found she really cared for waiting too long before she promised to marry him. “I don’t understand it in the least,” she laughed, blushing and shaking her head when she had said “yes.” “Neither do I,” agreed John MacPherson, promptly. “And I intend to marry you as soon as I wheedle you into naming the day, for fear you’ll change your mind.” Then he telegraphed his sister out West, who knew nothing of what had been going on in New York. Mrs. Ransom laughed and cried alternately when she got the laconic message. It said: “I have at last met Isabel. You can buy your gown to wear to the wedding.”—Philadelphia Bulletin.

THE GIRL HERSELF BROKE THE ICE.