Marion Arleigh's Penance / Everyday Life Library No. 5

on, but they were both overbalanced by romance-she saw only the ideal side of everything. The romance of this hidden love was del

r lawyer it would have been a different matter, but an artist-the halo of his art transfigur

nces that charmed her; and after a time

e would love him all her life, and would consent to marry him. Even at that time, when she was most ecstatic, most carried away by the n

gh of the laws of honor to know when they were broken. But this side of the question never occured to her. He was young, handsome, and an artist; he loved her so dearly that for love of her he was almost dying. She was rich and powerful; he had nothing but genius; he loved her so that her smile gave him life, her frown was death.

at and noble, how generous she wa

her, "and you are right. God gives genius, men make mon

d-something far excelling the ordinary run of girls. They flatt

ey told her that the whole world would praise her for her noble generosity. That the rich heiress who forgot her wealth and became the artist's wife, would be honored whe

im to her wealth, marry her at once, and leave her guardian to act as he thought best; but she, though delight

im one day, "love me as much if I

were not for that I would marry you at once. Ah, you should find out what I loved you for, sweet. I would w

t herself the most fortunate among woman to have won a

around her, until she lost the keen perception

. When he had won that promise from he

n; I am selfish, I ought not

raising her sweet

g; the noblest in the land will sue for your favor, and you, who might have been a duchess,

ore," she said. "You can give m

iting. One evening-it was August then, when the fruit hung ripe on the trees-

ght is that I shall see you; all the world seems so fair and life so bright, because

much touched with his words; the old idea o

s you promise it: Write to me every night and in your letters tell

she wrote to him every evening, and, remembering his request, in

, and hundreds will act so in the future. When girls have once mastered the grand lesson that all se

peal to Allan with which our story opens. He did his best to argue with her, and he sent a note to h

ment of having to plan interviews and arrange her letters so as to escape detection; it never occured to her that if she had been like other girls of her age in society, and so enabled to judge of people, so far from loving him and making a hero of him, he would have been

he was handsome; that he was all that could be noble and generous, because he talked poetry. True, she began to disl

ow they must wait until she was twenty-one, then

, gray and picturesque; the woods are beauti

share with you," he replied. "When

Allan, shall we never see each

ed. "You do not know

says I cannot go to Hanton alone, and

arion, you will write to

will be comparatively easy, and if I go into

page and go with you," he said. "I do

picture, and with the proceeds of the sale of it he purchased a rin

he could change his whole heart into one gre

ade her promise never to take it off. It wa

I can find a plain gold ring and that shall bi