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Show ! I QIIjrtBtmaB jj MT fiy s- B- HACKLEY : A broadcloth suit of the wlndr.vr display. Like one in a happy dream Miss Adriana put on the things aud presently pres-ently Delmar came in wearing bis evening eve-ning clothes. Would she go with him to see the play the young people of the town were giving, "A Rose of Old Dixie." With her face like the dawn Miss Adriana watched the players. Iva Ellsworth was the Dixie Rose, a witching witch-ing heroine: Paul Nelson, her lover. Iva played her part with brilliancy, but Paul's heart prompted his acting. It was for vent, real. Del mar's mind was torn with indecision. inde-cision. But near t lie end of the play he looked at the little lonely woman beside him, for the (line pathetically happy, and quite suddenly his mind was made up. "Auntie," he said abruptly to her when they were again in her living room, "will yon let me come live with you? Mother doesn't need me; she's going to be married soon to Dr. Ashley Ash-ley Wyatt. We'd be company for each other. If you'll let me I'll move my desk and other things over tomorrow." Miss Adriana's happiness of the evening, eve-ning, compared with .the new joy, was as a drop oi water to the ocean. That evening Iva Ellsworth received a bouquet of pink carnations and a note that asked her to pardon the writer for breaking his promise to call, and begging her to accept his congratulations congrat-ulations on the success of the play. "I didn't get what I wanted for Christmas," the note ended. "I didn't dare, in the face of things, to ask for it." (Copyright, 1919, by the McClure Newspaper News-paper Syndicate.) fOR many minutes on the afternoon that Robertson & Co. marked d o w n their "window suits" to $25 Iva Ellsworth, Elsie Banford's visitor, watched from Elsie's . automobile with sympathetic sym-pathetic eyes a little lame woman who stood before the window and directly in front of a navy blue coat suit of "chiffon broadcloth." broad-cloth." Delmar Halstead stood at the side of the car with his back to the sidewalk side-walk and his eyes on Iva's face. He had made excuse to leave his bookkeeper's book-keeper's desk when he had seen Elsie come in the store and leave her guest alone In' the car, so he did not see the little lame .woman. "I wish,"' said the girl irrelevantly, "everybody could have their dearest Christmas wishes !" Halstead's smile was a bit wistful. 'I echo your heavenly kind thought For several months the world held no happier creature than Miss Adriana. Adri-ana. Then she observed that Delmar had occasional fits of abstractednesn, unnatural to him. . Gradually It dawned upon her that he was troubled over something. "Where is that pretty Ellsworth girl now, Del, do you know?" she asked him tentatively one morning early in December. He started at her question, and she noticed with a sinking heart that the paper he had shook a little. "Bryce Garth told me yesterday Paul Nelson was married," he answered her, "and though Bryce didn't know to whom, I I think it must be to Miss Ellsworth, auntie." Later in the day, searching for a lost cuff button of Delmar's, she came upon a picture of the girl. "He loved her he gave up asking her to marry him," her troubled mind reasoned, "to make a home for me. And now he is grieving for her !" As the weeks passed Miss Adriana paled under the weight of her secret trouble. Delmar became uneasy for her, and a few days before Christmas sent her to the near-by city to see one of his friends, a fine young physician there. Iva Ellsworth Was the Dixie Rose. I've a big wish for Christmas myself." "Something pretty or useful?" "It's pretty, useful and good everything every-thing that's lovely and desirable." Iva's eyes were on the package in her lap, but she felt that he was look-lug look-lug at her In unconscious appraisal, and her pulse leaped. "Tell me about it Christmas evening. eve-ning. I mean," she added a little confusedly, con-fusedly, "whether yon get it or not." "Indeed 1 will !" he promised. Miss Adriana Halstead, elderly and That afternoon while crossing the street to the railroad station Miss Adriana felt herself caught and pulled back just in time to escape being run over by a heavy truck that came around the corner. The girl who saved her helped her to the ladies' sitting room of the station, but when her train came a few minutes later she was too shaken and n,ervous to attempt to board it. "Oh, what will Delmar think when I don't come !" she exclaimed. "Delmar !" The pretty girl's cheeks grew a deeper pink, and Miss Adriaaa knew her to be Iva Ellsworth. - "My nephew, Delmar Halstead, with whom I live in Review," she explained. ' "Why,, Review is only twenty-five miles," cried the girl ; "I'll telephone him and he can come for you in an automobile." When she came back Miss Adriana's lips trembled over a question. "Are you are you married, my dear?" When Delmar came Miss Adriana was able to smile in wan gayety at him. "Where is the lady that saved you?" be asked presently as be knelt beside somewhat neglected by her only relatives rela-tives her dead brother's family gave a glad little cry when she saw her Older nephew In her door that evening. Delmar felt a little prick of conscience as he kissed her. F'or a few moments the little woman fluttered about him happily, then set about preparing the evening meal she insisted he must share. While she was out of the room Delmar accidentally dropped his fountain foun-tain pen in her wastebijsket. As he fished it out, absently smoothing smooth-ing the sheets of crumpled uote paper In which it foil, his eyes caught in his aunt's crampod scrawl: "To Mrs. Miriam Mir-iam Halstead. My Mother in Heaven." Wondering, he read on : "Everybody but me is thinking of Christmas wishes gifts possible for them to have and oh, mother darling, I must tell someone what I know I cannot have, or my heart will break! "I want somebody of my people to sit at my table to laugh and to talk ivith me, to live with me and love me! n the four years since you anil father went away I've been lonely lonely! "I could not bear it if it were not for Delmar. When he is here I play he lives with mo, and I forget for a blessed hour or so I am alone. And oil. mother, my roses are going un-pnined, un-pnined, my fence nnuiended and my house unpainted. and my clothes are getting shabbier every day. I am afraid they will seen not be respectable respect-able enough for church. Oh, little mother. I want a new dress. I want oh. mother, ought I to covet that coat . : sr- ' "Delmar, You've Misjudged Me." suit in Robertson & Co.'s window lb" blue French broadcloth that would just fit me? I" The words ended here. The writer had evidently crumpled the paper and thrown it 'in the basket when she heard his ring. When Delmar went home he walked oy the corner and looked at the blue suit. Twenty-five dollars represented tin engagement ring if Iva Ellsworth would accept it. Iva lived with her cousins in the next slate aud was used lo luxury, anil his bookkeeper's salary was otdy .$75 a month, but Delmar bad resolved. On Christinas eve Miss Adriana's loorbcll rang to admit Robertson & '.'o.'s porter with a great box marked Willi Deltmir's Love." Under the lid i,y a fragrant bunch of violets, a lacy bite shin waist, a prolly blue velvet iniue, a pair of trim shoes and the her with his arms about her. "I don't know how I'll ever thank I hat. blessed woman !" Miss Adriana took his face between her hands. "Delmar," she said, "she told me her dearest wish for Christmas was a home! She has a little money of her own, but, Delmar, three people could live on what we two do, In comfort, in real comfort. 1 oh, Delmar, I want her to come and live with us!" Before Delmar could spesk the Inner In-ner door opened and Iva Ellsworth came in. "I know now why you didn't ask for what you wanted last Christinas!" she said softly. "Delimit' Ilalslead, how you've misjudged nie ! Plain living, liv-ing, with wllh love, and this dear woman to mother me, would be rlcbep to me 1" |