Jasper County Democrat, Volume 8, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 February 1906 — With the Help of the Ghost [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

With the Help of the Ghost

By TROY ALLISON.

Miss Wesley actually had begun to wish she could look older. To be thir-ty-eight and look twenty-five had its trials. In this instance it had its own particular drawback—the colonel was fifty. If the colonel had been let* certain that the younger men of his set were altogether desirable and that they were In every way suitable for her to select a husband from, Miss Wesley would have been better pleased and probably would never have regretted looking so young. As it was the colonel, although his military bearing and iron gray hair attracted attention under all circumstances, thought of his age and hesitated to ask the popular young woman to marry him. The incident at the Mabreys* dance convinced Miss Wesley that she bad given plenty of opportunities. It appeared necessary that she give him not only opportunity, but a helping hand. This, she decided, she was quite prepared to do. It only remained for her to decide the manner of its doing. On the night of the dance he had come nearer mustering the necessary courage than ever before, but just at the moment when the air became slightly charged with sentiment young Dr. Howell had come to their corner of the library, and the colonel, with an almost imperceptible sigh, bad said the young folks always had something to talk over and be would go get his supper and be off to bed as an old man should. Miss Wesley felt a moisture in her eyes and decided, then and there, upon the virtue of the helping hand. There was only the question of when and how it should be administered. The next week she ahnounced her intention of going south to inspect some old family property that had been left to her six months before. All her life she had heard of the old plantation, with its queer old mansion, and her childhood had reveled in tales of its ancient ghost It was such a silly, useless, mischievous ghost one that amused itself bumping down stairways during quiet midnight hours or thought it not unbecoming to ghostly dignity to take all the covers off the bed on a cold night and leave one trembling with terror and cold combined. Miss Wesley went therefore,- with the avowed intention not only of in-

spectlng the property, but of meeting the ghost she had inherited with it. She took with her Dr. Howell’s box of candies, but she wore one of the colonel’s red roses in the bosom of her traveling gown. Celeste, her French maid, sat near her, smiling as if there were something amusing in the atmosphere. Three weeks later Colonel Carr met Dr. Howell coming down the club steps. “Colonel, have you heard of Miss Wesley’s terrible shock?” he asked. The colonel stopped abruptly. ‘Terrible shock? No! What’s happened?" he demanded abruptly. Howell told the story with what seemed to the anxious colonel unbearable slowness. ,

It seemed that Miss Wesley’s coachman, left in town, bad received a letter from bls fiancee, Celeste, giving all the details of the mysterious affair. According to Celeste’s Animated narrative. Miss Wesley had seen the family ghost, and the shock had been too much for her. Her mistress’ hair had turned snow white from the shock. “It is a strange phase of nature,” said Dr. Howell. “And to think of such a beautiful woman experiencing the loss of that wonderful head of brown hair!” sympathetically. “They return to the city this afternoon, the coachman tells me,” he added. The colonel rang the doorbell that evening, feeling ill at ease as to how he should express his sympathy for the woman he loved. “Yes, Miss Wesley is at home and will be down tn a moment,” said Celeste, showing him into the library. Frances Wesley came in, her long black dress trailing softly. The colo-

nel’s eyes immediately fastened themselves upon the snowy hair piled in a fluffy mass upon the top of her head. “You see, I am to be classed among the old folks henceforth, colonel,” she responded to the look in his eyes. “I can’t offer sympathy,” he said slowly. “You are more beautiful than ever.” The color that came into her face justified his words. “I’ll sit out the dances with you now, colonel, instead of tilling my programme with names. The younger set will stand too much In awe of my white hair to ask me to dance.” “You poor girl!” He took her hand commiseratingly. “It is awfully hard on you, but I wish to heaven you could sit with me throughout life instead of throughout a dance.” She gave him a quick smile. “Well, maybe if you asked me”— She hesitated. “If I would ask you!” he exclaimed. “That’s what I have been trying to do for four years. I couldn’t Imagine you could care for a man so much older than yourself. I don’t believe I would have the courage now, but your lovely white hair makes us seejn more akin." He leaned over and touched the white fluffy mass with his lips. Miss Wesley sighed, then gave way to an irrepressible giggle of amusement.

“Colonel, do you think you could love a deceitful woman ?” she asked. The colonel, although fifty, used the perfectly proper reply to such a question from a woman. “I could—you—under any conditions,” rapturously. “Listen to this story, colonel.” She took both bls hands # hers and kept her eyes on his. “Once upon a time there was a girl of twenty-four who had so severe an attack of fever that when she recovered and her hair grew again it was snowy white. Her relatives thought white hair at her age would place her in a trying position, so they insisted that she dye it its natural color—brown.” The colonel looked startled, but she motioned him to keep still. “She kept it dyed for fourteen years," she continued, “and kept looking ridiculously young. She didn’t mind for the fact that the man she cared for was—fifty—and was afraid to ask her to marry him on account of the seeming difference in their ages." The colonel again grew restive, but she held his hand fast and hurried over the rest of the story. “It was Celeste’s plan,” she said, “and it struck my sense of humor very forcibly. Ctfleste has a dramatic soul—she made the plan, and I acquiesced. You see, the poor old family ghost gave me an excuse for letting my hair be natural without people finding out that I had been imposing on the public all these years. Do you think you could care for a fraud?” There was a slight note of anxiety in her voice.

The colonel evidently could and would. He refused to obey the restraining hands, but took her in his arms triumphantly. “We both needed the help of that ghost!” he exclaimed. “Long may he flourish in the realms of space! We’ll never try to lay him!”

FRANCES WESLEY cAME IN.