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Show J v ; A Rose Washed in Dew Dy MARTHA M. WILLIAMS u :; (Cupyrlcht. ) DKW still lay, yet flower-breath was at its fullest, mingling with a southerly air already laden wilh the sweetness of grape blossom, rising from the vineyard at foot of the long, walk, where Klsneth moved entranced, herself the embodiment of it all. Until two years back another garden, one older, and rambling, had been her sole confidante. She had grown in it, from a scrawny child holding aloof from the bouncing brood of nieces and nephews her stepmother made a point of asking in to play with her into a ! slip of a girl, scrawnier, more aloof. I Then upon her father's sudden deatli ! his widow had claimed the honie-: honie-: stead. .She said that Elspeth could j stay on if she chose but must nil-I nil-I derstand there would be changes. Do-f Do-f ing away with that ragged garden j first of all. Klspelh's answer bad been silent she packed her belongings belong-ings and went to a grandfather, who, though he had never forgiven bis daughter for marrying the man be did not choose, opened bis house, if not his heart, to this sole grandchild. "What do you want?" he had demanded de-manded of her. "Schooling? Travel? Young fools to play with?" After a silent minute, she had answered an-swered clearly: "Most of all to be let alone and not made to feel myself in the way." Thus, happily, she had fixed her own place. She found liberty something some-thing beyond her dreams; she had thriven in it, filling out, gaining daily in color, in strength, yet holding fast to her old loves books and the garden. gar-den. Loitering In her garden through a long morning, she came suddenly upon her grandfather, beside the tall rose trees, stately in their beds, "and cried to him impulsively: "You ought to see them in the dew I Do come early, once at least 1" "I remember 1 A rose in the dew Is at its best and deadliest," he said with a keen look, a hovering smile. lie did not and would never love Elspeth but somehow sight of her had roused in him a late and furious passion for his own blood. She owned It, clean, strong, untainted she alone could keep alive the strain. Coming eighteen now she must be suitably married by the time she was twenty. Yet he was far too wise to tell her so, even to let her know his wish. Tossibly Fate relents toward those who accept manfully her chastenings. Certainly here she began shuffling the cards beautifully. With properties such as fin electric August afternoon, riders, man find woman, moving swiftly swift-ly to the point where their ways would cross, a vivid flash, a rolling crash overhead. Elspeth had sat in saddle almost from her cradle, notwithstanding notwithstand-ing she did not ride like a centaur. Rather lightly, lithely, with something of clinging grace. Then, too, she had a magnetic control over animals. Racing Rac-ing home ahead of the storm, at a stretching run, with Dreadnaught, her Airedale, keeping emulously a yard ahead, she came full tilt to the cross-track, cross-track, just as a man shot from the mouth of It, and next breath lay half senseless in the main road. His horse, . swerving from the flash, had thrown him heavily. Elspeth went yards beyond be-yond him before she could check. Heedless of storm and rain she knelt beside him, silent yet trying to ease bis posture. Her touch stirred him he opened his eyes, tried to scramble up and fell back groaning. Lithe lingers upon bis forehead, she said cle,.rly: "I'm standing by to help as soon as I lind out how." The storm went as quickly as it had come. A man with a broken arm, a wrenched knee, is hard to handle, but somehow Elspeth had riianaged it. He sat safe in her saddle, the knee bound in the stirrup with her scarf. She Was up behind, her arms either side of him, guiding Cay Iloltou who seemed to understand. Thus the j sound band of the stranger could I clasp the broken bone, easing its hurt so a little color bad come hack into his white face. Elspeth bad spoken hardly a dozen words. She did uol need to speak her bare touch was j enough. To her horse: "Go home! Quick Dreadnnughl had vanished so Warely gates stood open help was there in i plenty. It was not until he was being be-ing carried into the big gray bouse j that the stranger said: "I am Keese MaokH.v," preiir'lly fainting at the last letter. flspelh faced her grandfather, to say: "I brought him here because be seemed to belong " "I think he does." the general interrupted. inter-rupted. flspetb might know nothing of Iteese Mackay--but her lawful guar- j diau was happily much wiser. So I when she told him a week later: "I am going to many Reese." he said ' urbanely: "As you please about that. Hut just as a matter of family gossip. I'd like to know when he fell in love ! whb vim';" "lie says--1here in the road as be ' opened his e;,es," Elspeth answered, i her eyes shining even brighter. j "I see!" said foxy grandpa. "An- ; other case of the rose washed in dew i only it ehances to have been rain 1 water." j "Put. General, It's quite as deadly,"! Iteese called through the half-open door to which the general answered oracularly: "So mote it be." |